From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

=====

Thirty-four years after his defeat in the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament, Johnny Lawrence, now in his 50s, works as a part-time handyman and lives in an apartment in Reseda, Los Angeles, having fallen far from the wealthy lifestyle in Encino that had been enabled by his verbally abusive step-father, Sid Weinberg. He has a son, Robby Keene, with ex-girlfriend Shannon Keene, but he abandoned them both when Robby was born and Johnny's mother Laura died on the same day. Johnny, admittedly, has never recovered from his breakup with then high school girlfriend, Ali Mills. After losing his job, a down-and-out Johnny uses karate to rescue his teenage neighbor Miguel Diaz from a gang of bullies. Miguel, an asthmatic child raised by his Ecuadorian single mother Carmen, asks Johnny to teach him. Initially reluctant, Johnny finally agrees and decides to reopen the Cobra Kai karate dojo as a chance to recapture his past; however, this act reawakens his rivalry with Daniel LaRusso. Daniel, now in his late 40s and the owner of a highly successful car dealership chain, is married and has two children: Samantha and Anthony. Daniel is finally living the wealthy lifestyle he envied as a child when he lived in Reseda. However, after his friend and mentor Mr. Miyagi died, Daniel's struggle to meaningfully connect with his children has disrupted the balance in his life. Meanwhile, his mother Lucille, his other source of support, has a complicated relationship with his wife Amanda. Johnny's dojo attracts a group of bullied social outcasts who find camaraderie and self-confidence under his tutelage, a marked contrast to the kind of students Tommy, Bobby, Dutch, Jimmy and Johnny were when training in the original Cobra Kai run by John Kreese. Johnny develops a bond with his first and best student, Miguel, in a manner that resembles the relationship between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. Cobra Kai's philosophy, however, remains mostly unchanged, though Johnny tries to infuse it with more honor than Kreese did. Thus, Miguel develops into a very different kind of student than Daniel, or even Johnny, was; he also begins dating Samantha. Johnny's efforts to reform Cobra Kai are threatened by the unexpected reappearance of Kreese, who hopes to bring the dojo back to its originally ruthless form. As a means of revenge against his estranged father, Robby convinces Amanda to hire him for a position at the LaRusso Auto dealership and develops a close friendship with Daniel (although Daniel is unaware of Robby's parentage). He even studies Mr. Miyagi's form of Karate with Daniel and becomes friendly with Samantha. She eventually joins her father's dojo, which ultimately leads to her breaking up with Miguel. Miguel later begins dating another Cobra Kai student, Tory, who is Sam's rival. The developing story revolves around these primary relationships, which lead to conflicts that are ultimately the product of Daniel and Johnny's inability to move away from the past. 

=====



=====

One afternoon while watching television, Homer and Bart see a highly distracting commercial for something named "Gabbo"; this is the start of a viral marketing campaign, with the whole of Springfield unsure what "Gabbo" actually is. Finally, "Gabbo" is revealed to be a ventriloquist's dummy. Ventriloquist Arthur Crandall announces that Gabbo's new program will air in direct competition with the established Krusty the Klown Show each afternoon at 4 p.m. Gabbo's catchphrase — "I'm a bad wittle boy" — instantly charms his intended audience, and this has a negative impact on Krusty and his show. The clown vows to withstand the competition from the new program, but Gabbo's cutthroat tactics quickly attract Krusty's audience. Krusty tries to fight back with a dummy of his own, but its gruesome appearance and poor condition scares off many of the children in the audience. To make matters worse, Itchy and Scratchy have moved to the Gabbo Show, forcing Krusty to instead show a Cold War-era Eastern European Communist cartoon entitled "Worker and Parasite", which is incomprehensible. Eventually, Krusty's ratings hit rock bottom, and his show is canceled. Left without work and without having built a nest egg (something referenced in Krusty Gets Busted by his ex- sidekick, Sideshow Bob), Krusty falls on hard times and begins suffering from depression. Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa, unimpressed with Gabbo, decide to try to help Krusty. Bart sneaks into the studio and secretly records Gabbo referring to children of Springfield as "SOBs", which damages his reputation. This backfires when Kent Brockman makes the same reference, right after condemning Gabbo for it. After visiting Krusty and seeing photos of him with a series of celebrity friends, Bart and Lisa suggest that he host a comeback special. They begin recruiting major celebrities to appear on Krusty's special: Bette Midler, Johnny Carson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hugh Hefner, and Luke Perry. They also try to recruit Elizabeth Taylor, but her agent declines the invitation before they can speak to her. Bart and Lisa then help Krusty get back into shape before the special airs, necessitated by his misunderstanding of the concept of diet milkshakes and drinking copious amounts of regular milkshakes instead. Krusty tries to tempt his former partner Sideshow Mel, who is now working in a fast food restaurant, into rejoining for the comeback special, but Mel declines, citing the repeated physical abuse that he was subjected to during his time working with Krusty. Krusty's comeback special features his surprise reunion with Sideshow Mel, Perry getting shot out of a cannon, the Red Hot Chili Peppers singing "Give It Away" in their underwear, Carson lifting a 1987 Buick Skylark over his head, Hefner playing "Peter and the Wolf" on a glass harp, and Krusty and Midler singing "Wind Beneath My Wings". The show is a great success and Krusty's career gets back on track. While watching the special at home, Taylor remarks to herself that she should fire her agent. Afterwards, everyone heads to Moe's Tavern for an after party, where they toast Krusty and watch Carson as he plays the accordion while balancing Grampa and Jasper on a bench on his head. 

=====

The story takes place at Lincoln International, a fictional Chicago airport based very loosely on O'Hare International Airport. The action mainly centers on Mel Bakersfeld, the Airport General Manager. His devotion to his job is tearing apart his family and his marriage to his wife Cindy, who resents his use of his job at the airport as a device to avoid going to various after-hours events she wants him to participate in, as she attempts to climb into the social circles of Chicago's elite. His problems in his marriage are further exacerbated by his romantically charged friendship with a lovely divorcee from Trans America Airlines, who is their passenger relations manager, Tanya Livingston. The story takes place mainly over the course of one evening and night, as a massive snowstorm wreaks havoc on airport operations. The storyline centers on Bakersfeld's struggles to keep the airport open during the storm. His chief problem is the unexpected closure of primary Runway 30 (runway 29 in the subsequent film), caused when a departing airliner for a Mexican airline (in the film, an arriving airplane of the same airline as the flight to Rome) turns off past the wrong side of a runway marker light, burying the plane's landing gear in the snow, and blocking the runway. This becomes a major problem as another airplane, Trans America Flight Two, experiences a midair emergency, aborts the flight to Rome and returns to Lincoln. This requires runway 30 to be made operational---at any cost. The closing of runway 30 requires the use of shorter runway 25 (runway 22 in the subsequent film), which has the unfortunate consequence of causing planes to take off over a noise-sensitive suburb, whose residents picket the airport in protest. The shorter runway 25 is also later inadequate to land the returning airplane, which has suffered major structural and mechanical damage due to explosive decompression caused by the detonation of the bomb brought on board. The book presents an overview of the operations of a major commercial airport, much of which is still applicable over 50 years later. Several major and minor characters appear, illustrating the vast complexity of the airport and its operations, including customs officers, lawyers, airport police, doctors, clerks, snow clearers, et al. 

=====

Alnwick Castle by Canaletto, c. 1760 Percy became the fifth member of the Gunpowder plot on Sunday 20 May 1604. Almost a year earlier, he had called at Robert Catesby's home at Ashby St Ledgers, and complained bitterly about James, who since succeeding Elizabeth had done little to fulfil his expectations. He had threatened to kill the new king with his own hands, but was asked by Catesby to restrain himself, and told "I am thinking of a most sure way and I will soon let thee know what it is." Thus Percy found himself at the Duck and Drake inn near the Strand in London, along with Catesby and his cousin Thomas Wintour, John Wright and Guy Fawkes. His first words at the meeting were "Shall we always, gentlemen, talk and never do anything?" All five later swore an oath of secrecy on a prayer book, and then celebrated Mass in another room with Father Gerard, who was ignorant of their pact. While the plotters did not then have a detailed plan, Percy's appointment on 9 June as a Gentleman Pensioner gave him a reason to establish a London base. Through Northumberland's agents, Dudley Carleton and John Hippesley, he subleased a house in Westminster from Henry Ferrers, a tenant of John Whynniard, and installed Fawkes there as his servant, "John Johnson". On 25 March 1605 Percy also obtained the lease for the undercroft directly underneath the first-floor House of Lords. It was into this room that the plotters moved 36 barrels of gunpowder from Catesby's lodgings on the opposite side of the River Thames. The plan was that during the State Opening of Parliament, at which the king and his ministers would be present, the plotters would blow up the House of Lords, killing all those within it. James's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, would be captured during a Midlands uprising, and installed as a titular queen. Percy spent that Autumn collecting Northumberland's rents, while Catesby continued to enlist support. By October 1605, he had 12 Catholic men assigned to his cause and was at work on the remaining details. Several conspirators expressed disquiet over the safety of fellow Catholics who might be caught in the planned explosion. Percy's concern was for his patron, Northumberland, who it seems might have been made Lord Protector if the plot had succeeded. Lord Monteagle's name was also mentioned, by a worried Francis Tresham. The fate of Elizabeth's brother, Prince Henry, was uncertain; although the plotters presumed that he would die with his father, they decided that if he did not attend Parliament, Percy should kidnap him. 

=====

In a little town in French West Africa in 1938, Lucien Cordier is the only policeman. Unable or unwilling to impose his authority, he is treated with scorn by everybody. His sexy wife Huguette has brought a lover, Nono, to live openly with them, claiming he is her brother. Cordier fancies the mischievous young bride Rose, but lets her brutal husband beat her in the street unchallenged. The head of the timber company, Vanderbrouck, daily insults him for all to see. And the bane of his life is a pair of slimy pimps, who flout the law and enjoy humiliating him. It is the pimps that take him to the brink, so he gets on a train to consult his superior Chavasson, who tells him to act forcefully. On the train home is the attractive new teacher in town, Anne, to whom he warms immediately. Once back, he catches the two pimps alone and, after shooting both dead, throws the corpses in the river. When Chavasson learns of this, he rushes down to question Cordier, who says it was in effect Chavasson who killed them. Having outwitted his boss and removed his prime tormentors, Cordier starts on the others who have made his life a misery. Vanderbrouck is dropped in a privy and Rose's husband, like the pimps, is shot dead. When his servant brings his master's body back to the house, Cordier has to kill him as well. Catching Nono peeping at Anne in the shower, he beats him up in the street. Then he steals the money which his wife had been saving up in order to leave him and goes off to see the Rose. Huguette and Nono, reckoning that he is going to abscond with Rose and the money, storm round to Rose's and in self-defence Rose shoots both dead. Cordier gives her the money and tells her to get away fast. All he has left in life is Anne, to whom he confesses his general malaise and specific crimes. She is ready to accept him but he says he is now incapable of love. In the closing shot, he is alone under a tree caressing a revolver. 

=====

In 1954 Baltimore, Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker is the leader of a gang of "drapes", which includes his sister Pepper, a teenage mother; Mona "Hatchet Face" Malnorowski, who is facially disfigured; Wanda Woodward, who is constantly embarrassed by her post World War II normal parents; and Milton Hackett, Hatchet Face's devoted boyfriend. Walker's ability to shed a single tear drives all the girls wild. One day after school, he is approached by Allison Vernon-Williams, a pretty girl tired of being a "square", and the two fall in love. That same day, Cry-Baby approaches the "square" part of town to a talent show at the recreation center where Allison's grandmother hosts events, and introduces himself to her, who is skeptical of his motives. Cry- Baby invites Allison to a party at Turkey Point, a local hangout spot for the drapes. Despite her grandmother's skepticism, Allison accompanies Cry-Baby to Turkey Point and sings with the drapes. As Cry-Baby and Allison tell each other about their orphan lives; Cry-Baby's father was sent to the electric chair after being the "Alphabet Bomber" – a killer who bombed places in alphabetical order and his mother tried to stop him, but also got sent to the electric chair as a result; Allison's parents took separate flights to avoid orphaning her if they crashed, but both their planes went down. Allison's jealous square boyfriend, Baldwin, then starts a riot. Cry-Baby is blamed for the fight and sent to a penitentiary, outraging all his friends and even Allison's grandmother, who is impressed by Cry-Baby's posture, manners, and musical talent. As Lenora Frigid, a loose girl with a crush on Cry-Baby, but constantly rejected by him, claims to be pregnant with his child, Allison feels betrayed and returns to Baldwin and the squares, though her grandmother advises her against rushing into a decision. Meanwhile, in the penitentiary, Cry-Baby gets a teardrop tattoo. He tells the tattoo artist, fellow drape Dupree (Robert Tyree): "I've been hurt all my life, but real tears wash away. This one's for Allison, and I want it to last forever!". Eventually after performing with Baldwin and the Whiffles, Allison is persuaded by the newly established alliance between the Drapes and her grandmother to stand by Cry- Baby and join the campaign for his release. Cry-Baby is released, but immediately insulted by Baldwin, who after revealing that his grandfather is the one who electrocuted Cry-Baby's father, challenges him to a chicken race. Cry-Baby wins, as Baldwin chickens out, and is reunited with Allison. The film ends with all watching the chicken race crying a single tear, except for Allison and Cry-Baby, who has finally let go of the past, enabling him to cry from both eyes. 

=====



=====



=====

The film opens to Adam Beckett (Zach Galligan) reluctantly performing as a purported pianist to an audience in New York City. When Beckett gives away that he is using a player piano, the outraged crowd storms the stage and wraps Beckett with the piano rolls. After he awakes and realizes it was a nightmare, Adam is accosted on a train by a Swedish architect, to whom he explains his stymied dreams of becoming an artist. After encouragement from the architect, Adam resolves to return to America. Upon returning, he discovers that the Port Authority has taken control of New York and is restricting entry into the city. Upon failing a drawing test at the Port Authority, Adam is forced to work in a menial job under a trigger-happy boss (Dan Aykroyd). His kindness to a tramp leads him to be taken into an underground network where he discovers that the city's tramps are controlling the destiny of all the cities in the world. They instruct him to travel to the moon on a mission—via a city bus and its conductor (Bill Murray) —to spread peace and find his true love (Lauren Tom). 

=====

Act I Florence, 1535. Sculptor Benvenuto Cellini has been sentenced to hang for the attempted murder of Count Maffio ("When the Bell of Doom is Clanging"). The people of Florence gather in the public square, gaily celebrating the hanging ("Come to Florence"). On the gallows, the unrepentant, rakish Cellini says it's been a good life anyway ("Life, Love, and Laughter"). Suddenly Alessandro, Duke of Florence, pardons Cellini, because the statue of a nymph he commissioned from the sculptor has not been finished yet, though Alessandro has already paid for it. Walking away from the scaffold, Cellini is set upon by Maffio; this time he kills him (or so it seems). Back at Cellini's workshop, his apprentice Ascanio and servant Emilia rejoice in the reprieve ("Our Master Is Free Again"), as Cellini presents an embellished version of his latest duel with Maffio ("I Had Just Been Pardoned"). He resumes work on the statue, but he has trouble concentrating because of his attraction to his model, Angela. Angela reciprocates the attraction but with reservations ("You're Far Too Near Me"). The French ambassador enters, telling Cellini that the Duke intends to hang him for Maffio's murder, and suggesting that he flee to Paris, where the king wants him to decorate Fontainebleau. But before Cellini can bolt, Duke Alessandro arrives ("Alessandro the Wise") to ogle Angela. The Duke decides to carry off Angela to his summer palace, and he puts Cellini under house arrest (Finaletto). Cellini escapes his guards and hurries to the summer palace to rescue Angela. He accidentally encounters Alessandro's wife, the Duchess of Florence ("Entrance of the Duchess") on her way to Pisa. The Duchess makes no secret of her yen for Cellini, and she's not interested in romance, just sex ("Sing Me Not a Ballad"). The two plan an assignation for later. Next Cellini encounters the Duke's cousin, Ottaviano, who demands that he conspire to kill the Duke, but Cellini refuses, and Ascanio helps him escape. At the summer palace, the Duke exults in the opportunity to have his way with Angela ("While the Duchess is Away"). But Cellini has sneaked in, and he eavesdrops as the Duke makes his move. The Duke senses Cellini's presence and is unnerved, and his attempt at seduction degenerates into spoonerisms ("The Nosy Cook"). Cellini emerges, and a commotion ensues during which Cellini escapes with Angela and the Duchess unexpectedly returns, to the Duke's chagrin. The act concludes in a merry tarantella. Act II Back in Florence at Cellini's workshop, Benvenuto and Angela finally consummate their passion. But they bicker the following morning, and when a missive from the Duchess arrives ("The Duchess's Letter") inviting Cellini to decorate the summer palace, he sets his mind on the Duchess rather than Angela. Cellini's inconstancy aggrieves Angela, who blames it all on Cupid ("The Little Naked Boy"). Meanwhile, at the city palace, the guards always have their spears at the ready ("Just in Case"). Inside the palace, the Duke schemes to woo Angela by writing her a love poem, but he cannot come up with "A Rhyme for Angela." When he learns that Cellini has taken Angela away, the Duke again threatens to hang him, but the Duchess persuades him to put him on trial first. The people of Florence gather in a carnival atmosphere once again ("Hear Ye!"). The judges read the charges against Cellini ("The World is Full of Villains") but Cellini protests that his past behavior, like everyone else's, is predetermined by the stars ("You Have to Do What You Do Do"). For a moment the Duke is amused by this, sensing that this astrological alibi covers his own amatory transgressions. Then Ottaviano testifies that Cellini conspired to kill the Duke. Just when Cellini appears doomed, Ascanio testifies that it was really Ottaviano who was plotting against the Duke ("How Wonderfully Fortunate"), and the Duchess supports the accusation. So the Duke again reverses himself, arresting Ottaviano and pardoning Cellini. Now Cellini decides to accept the commission to redecorate Fontainebleau. For the greater glory of art and posterity ("Love is My Enemy"), he swears off both the Duchess and Angela, while they commiserate with each other ("The Little Naked Boy" reprise). The scene shifts to Fontainebleau ("Come to Paris") where Cellini, deprived of Angela as a model/muse, has a bad case of "sculptor's block." Suddenly the Duke and Duchess of Florence arrive, with Angela in tow. Cellini reconciles with Angela. Finally he finishes and unveils his nymph statue, as commedia dell'arte players perform a motley dance. Bizarrely, Maffio reappears—he had not been killed after all. As Cellini and Maffio draw their swords, a spirit of gaiety lights up the stage in a final reprise of "Life, Love, and Laughter." 

=====



=====

Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a woman whom he often finds too demanding, he works his way up to be a magistrate, thanks to the influence he has over a friend who has just been promoted, focusing more on his work as his family life becomes less tolerable. While hanging curtains for his new home one day, he falls awkwardly and hurts his side. Though he does not think much of it at first, he begins to suffer from a pain in his side. As his discomfort grows, his behavior towards his family becomes more irritable. His wife finally insists that he visit a physician. The physician cannot pinpoint the source of his malady, but soon it becomes clear that his condition is terminal. Confronted with his diagnosis, Ivan attempts every remedy he can to obtain a cure for his worsening situation, until the pain grows so intense that he is forced to cease working and spend the remainder of his days in bed. Here, he is brought face to face with his mortality and realizes that, although he knows of it, he does not truly grasp it. During the long and painful process of dying, Ivan dwells on the idea that he does not deserve his suffering because he has lived rightly. If he had not lived a good life, there could be a reason for his pain; but he has, so pain and death must be arbitrary and senseless. As he begins to hate his family for avoiding the subject of his death, for pretending he is only sick and not dying, he finds his only comfort in his peasant boy servant, Gerasim, the only person in Ivan's life who does not fear death, and also the only one who, apart from his own son, shows compassion for him. Ivan begins to question whether he has, in fact, lived a good life. In the final days of his life, Ivan makes a clear split between an artificial life, such as his own, which masks the true meaning of life and makes one fear death, and an authentic life, the life of Gerasim. Authentic life is marked by compassion and sympathy, the artificial life by self- interest. Then "some force" strikes Ivan in the chest and side, and he is brought into the presence of a bright light. His hand falls onto his nearby son's head, and Ivan pities his son. He no longer hates his daughter or wife, but rather feels pity for them, and hopes his death will release them. In so doing, his terror of death leaves him, and as Tolstoy suggests, death itself disappears. 

=====

Beginning where the previous episode left off, Buffy arrives home and sees the flowers sent from Joyce's suitor. She calls out to her mother and hears no answer. Buffy sees Joyce lying lifeless on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. In a flashback to a Christmas dinner where all the Scoobies are present, having a typical lighthearted conversation as Joyce and Buffy discuss a pie that drops on the floor. The scene snaps back to Buffy in the living room, shaking Joyce and screaming at her. She calls for an ambulance and attempts CPR, accidentally snapping a rib in the process, but to no avail. Buffy calls Giles. The paramedics arrive and work on Joyce and she revives, the paramedics declare it a miracle in the ambulance, and Joyce, Buffy, and Dawn rejoice in the hospital. Revealed to be a fantasy of Buffy's, the scene snaps back to the living room, where the paramedics continue to work on Joyce until they stop and tell Buffy that Joyce is dead. They leave, and Buffy goes into the hall and vomits. Giles arrives and Buffy tells him not to move the body, shocking herself by using that word. At school, Dawn is crying in the bathroom upset that a girl called her a freak. In art class she talks with a boy as they sketch, and the two share a moment of understanding about being troubled. Buffy arrives and pulls Dawn out of class into the hall. Through the windows of the art room, the class watches Buffy tell her that Joyce has had an accident. The rest of the conversation is muffled. Dawn collapses in the hall, sobbing. In Willow's dormitory room, Tara tries to help Willow find a shirt to wear. Xander and Anya arrive and double-park. Willow panics, rejecting shirt after shirt, not knowing how to appear for Buffy and Dawn. She asks why her clothes are stupid and she is childish, weeping until Tara kisses and calms her. Anya asks Xander what she is supposed to do; he cannot answer. Willow changes her shirt again and Xander expresses his desire to find Glory and exact justice, then complains about Joyce's negligent doctors. Anya asks if they will see the body, then if the body will be cut open, and Willow responds angrily. Anya tearfully says she does not understand how to behave, or why Joyce cannot go back into her own body, unable to understand human death, she states that it is all "stupid and mortal", and no one will tell her why things are happening. Xander puts his fist through the wall, making him bleed but feel oddly better. As the group leaves to visit Buffy at the hospital, Xander gets a parking ticket. In the waiting room outside the morgue, the doctor tells Buffy that Joyce died of an aneurysm suddenly and painlessly. Left alone with Buffy, Tara tells her that her own mother died when she was 17 and she went through something similar. Dawn goes alone to the morgue to see Joyce's body. While she is there, one of the bodies, now a vampire, gets up. After noticing Dawn has not come back, Buffy goes to look for her and finds her in the morgue, being attacked by the vampire. As Buffy fights and kills the vampire, the sheet falls from Joyce's face. Looking at her mother's body, Dawn asks where she went, as she reaches out to touch her cheek. 

=====



=====

Roy Applewood (Tom Wilkinson), after fainting on the night of 25th marriage anniversary, shocks his wife Irma (Jessica Lange) by revealing plans to transition into a woman named Ruth. While Ruth tries to keep the family together, Irma's initial reaction is to separate from her. Patty Ann (Hayden Panettiere), their daughter, is more accepting, but Wayne (Joseph Sikora), their son, struggles with the transition. He mocks Ruth after receiving an explanation letter. The movie follows the fictitious story of the character Ruth in the depiction of her transition. She buys women's clothes, wears earrings and puts on perfume. She finds graffiti on her truck "You are not normal". Her mother decides not to tell her father. She is kicked out of church choir. Irma finds Ruth in the barn with a gun to her head. She invites her back home. Her teen daughter just got her period and doesn't like being a girl. Son Wayne comes home for Thanksgiving and ends up in a fist fight with Ruth. The son yells obscenities at her and then cries in her arms. After a year passes she goes in for surgery with full support of Irma. Ruth faces ostracism at church and at work. She finds understanding from her boss, Frank, but not from her minister. In the end, Irma discovers that love transcends gender and the family survives. 

=====

Set in Yorkshire and London in 1933, The 12.30 from Croydon is about 35-year- old Charles Swinburn, the owner of a factory in Cold Pickerby, Yorkshire, in which electric motors are produced. Swinburn has inherited the works from his father and uncle. While the former has been dead for many years, Andrew Crowther, his uncle, leads a retired life in the same town. At 65, his health has recently started to deteriorate. In particular, Crowther is suffering from indigestion. Swinburn's business is hit by the Great Depression just like any other company, but when he asks his uncle for a loan to be able to avoid bankruptcy he is appalled to find that the old man, obviously no longer able to understand trends in the world economy, is unwilling to grant him a substantial sum to overcome his financial difficulties. Swinburn knows that he and his cousin Elsie will each inherit half of Crowther's fortune, so he does not see why he cannot have some of the money a bit earlier--"an advance on his legacy". At this point the first thoughts that it might be feasible to kill his uncle without being found out occur to Swinburn. His unrequited love for a young woman called Una Mellor helps him come to a quick decision. "It seems a beastly thing to say", she tells him, but I may as well tell you at once that under no circumstances would I marry a poor man. This is not entirely mercenary and selfish. I shouldn't be happy without the things I am accustomed to and my husband wouldn't be happy either. To marry where there would be shortage and privation would mean misery for both of us. It would be simply foolish and I'm not going to do it. [Chapter IV] After thinking the matter over again and again, Swinburn resolves to poison his uncle with potassium cyanide. He takes all kinds of precautions when he buys the poison. Then he makes a pill that looks like one of Crowther's anti- indigestion tablets. He buys a bottle of those pills, buries the poisoned pill in that bottle, and, over dinner at his uncle's, spills a glass of wine which gives him the opportunity to exchange bottles without anyone noticing. Charles Swinburn is particularly proud of his perfect alibi. On the following morning he books a three-week cruise of the Mediterranean. When he is informed of his uncle's death, he is in Naples, Italy. To his surprise, his uncle took the pill not at home but on his first (and last) flight, the 12.30 from Croydon: The family had been alarmed by a report stating that Elsie had had an accident in France, and Crowther had insisted on coming with Elsie's father and their daughter. On arrival in France he had been found dead. Avon (unnumbered #9), first paperback edition, 1941 and the first edition under the U.S. title An inquest is held, but Swinburn feels quite safe when no one seems to implicate him in the case. However, some time later he is approached by Weatherup, Crowther's butler, who claims he has seen him exchange the bottles, and who starts blackmailing him. Again, Swinburn sees no other solution than to "take that desperate remedy" and kill the butler. This time he cannot be as subtle as when planning his uncle's death. He brutally slays Weatherup with a piece of lead pipe and dumps his body in a nearby lake. Soon afterwards he is arrested, tried, and hanged. One of the interesting aspects of the novel is the insight the reader gains into the workings of a criminal mind. In particular, Swinburn's rationalization along utilitarian argumentative patterns must be mentioned in this context: Then he told himself that all this morality business was only an old wives' tale. He, Charles, wasn't tied up by these out-of-date considerations! What was politic was right. What was the greatest good of the greatest number? Why, that Andrew should die. What about all the men that were going to be thrown out of employment? What about the clerks? What about poor old Gairns? What about Gairns's invalid wife? Andrew Crowther's useless life could count for nothing against such a weight of human suffering. [Chapter VII] Crofts's Detective-Inspector Joseph French, who appears in several of his novels, keeps in the background during the action of The 12.30 from Croydon. He does solve the case, and explains how he did it in the final chapters of the novel, but the emphasis of the book is on the thoughts and deeds of the criminal. 

=====

One of the changes to the plot of the video game is the absence of the villainous organisation SPECTRE, who played a vital role in the film. Due to legal issues that have plagued the James Bond film series since 1963, the organization was renamed "OCTOPUS" and appears to lack a central leader in the same vein as Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The SPECTRE name was tied up in a long- running dispute over the film rights to Thunderball, between United Artists/MGM and the now-deceased writer Kevin McClory. The game begins with a pre-title sequence in which Elizabeth Stark, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom's daughter, is kidnapped by OCTOPUS while attending a party. Bond was assigned to attend the party for just such an event, and he defeats OCTOPUS and rescues Miss Stark. Similar to the film, OCTOPUS has conceived a plan to embarrass British secret service agent 007 for the death of Dr. Julius No from the film Dr. No, in which No was an agent of SPECTRE. The plan involves the theft of a Soviet encoding machine known as the Lektor with the help of a defecting Soviet agent, Tatiana Romanova. However, Romanova is being used by OCTOPUS to lure James Bond into a trap; their ultimate goal is to let him obtain the Lektor and then ambush him for it, killing him in humiliating fashion as well. Romanova is sent by Rosa Klebb, an agent of the KGB (in both the novel and film, an agent of SMERSH) who has secretly defected to OCTOPUS. Her immediate subordinate, Donald "Red" Grant, protects Bond through the first half of the game and attacks him in the second. The game ends with a final assault on OCTOPUS headquarters, during which Grant is fatally shot by Bond. 

=====

The story is told as a series of diary entries, the first being New Year's Day, 1796. The setting is an island off the coast of Norway. On January 1, the narrator records that it is his first day in the lighthouse, and records his annoyance at the fact that he had a difficult time getting the appointment to man it, even though he is of noble birth. He records that a storm is in progress, and that the ship that brought him "had a narrow pass". He also dwells on the concept of being alone, and how much he looks forward to spending time alone, just him and his dog Neptune, so he can write his book. He briefly comments that he hears some echo in the walls, thinking they may not be sturdy, but catches himself and claims that his worries are "all nonsense", alluding to a prophecy made by his friend DeGrat, who got him the appointment to the lighthouse. On January 2 he describes the sea as being calm and uneventful, the wind having "lulled about day-break", and expounds on his passion for being alone. On January 3 he describes the day as being calm and placid, and resolves to explore the lighthouse. He again begins to worry about the safety of the structure, but tries to reassure himself. The last line reads, "The basis on which the structure rests seems to me to be chalk..." A heading for January 4 follows, but there is no text. 

=====

The narrator presents the facts of the extraordinary case of his friend Ernest Valdemar, which have incited public discussion. He is interested in mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnagogic state by the influence of animal magnetism, a process that later developed into hypnotism. He points out that, as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person. He considers experimenting on Valdemar, an author whom he had previously mesmerized, and who has recently been diagnosed with phthisis (tuberculosis). Valdemar consents to the experiment and informs the narrator by letter that his doctors expect him to die by midnight of the following evening. Valdemar's two physicians inform the narrator of their patient's poor condition. After confirming again that Valdemar is willing to be part of the experiment, the narrator comes back the next night with two nurses and a medical student as witnesses. Again, Valdemar insists he is willing to take part and asks the narrator to hurry, for fear he has "deferred it for too long". Valdemar is quickly mesmerized, just as the two physicians return and serve as additional witnesses. In a trance, he reports first that he is dying—then that he is dead. The narrator leaves him in a mesmeric state for seven months, checking on him daily with the help of physicians and friends. During this time Valdemar is without pulse, heartbeat or perceptible breathing, his skin cold and pale. Finally, the narrator makes attempts to awaken Valdemar, asking questions that are answered with difficulty as Valdemar's voice emanates from his throat and lolling tongue while his lips and jaws are frozen in death. In between trance and wakefulness, Valdemar begs the narrator to quickly put him back to sleep or to wake him. As Valdemar shouts "Dead! Dead!" repeatedly, the narrator starts to bring him out of his trance, only for his entire body to immediately decay into a "nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence." 

=====

Scat Sweeney and Hot Lips Barton, two out-of-work musicians, travel the United States trying to find work and stay away from girls. After running from state to state, each time running because of a girl, they try their luck in Louisiana. They stow away on board a Rio-bound ship, after accidentally starting some fires at a circus. They then get mixed up with the distraught Lucia, who first thanks them, then unexpectedly turns them over to the ship's captain. Unbeknownst to both of them, Lucia is being hypnotized by her crooked guardian, Catherine Vail. Vail plans to marry Lucia to her brother so she can control her and a set of "papers". After a series of misadventures, including sneaking off the boat, recruiting a few local musicians, and the boys trying to escape with Lucia, only to have Vail hypnotize her again and slap them both, Vail decides to do away with the boys permanently. She hypnotizes both of them and tries to get them to kill each other in a duel, but it fails. Scat and Hot Lips finally figure things out and the boys head for the ceremony to stop the wedding and to help catch the crooks. Upon finding the "papers", which Scat reads, when Hot Lips asks what they are about, Scat tears them up and looks into the camera, saying, "The world must never know." Later on, Scat is dismayed to see that Lucia loves Hot Lips and not him, but upon peeking through a keyhole, he sees Hot Lips hypnotizing her. Hope's frequent sidekick Jerry Colonna has a cameo as the leader of a cavalry charging to the rescue of Bing and Bob, as the film cuts away to the galloping horses periodically. All is resolved before he can arrive, leading Colonna to point out: 

=====

This is the true story of Kent Stock, who in 1991 takes on what he perceives as the job of a lifetime as head coach of the Norway High School Tigers baseball team, which has won 19 state titles and has a baseball tradition in Iowa tantamount to that of the New York Yankees nationally. Stock joins the team in 1990 as assistant coach, excited to learn from the legendary Tigers coach Jim Van Scoyoc. The Tigers win the 1990 title, the twelfth under Van Scoyoc. Stock is unaware that he has been picked by the school's Principal Halberstorm to replace Van Scoyoc in order to facilitate a losing 1991 season. The principal is pushing a consolidation of Norway with the larger "Madison School District" (in real life, the Benton Community School District), but the town is opposed, centered mainly on not wanting to give up the successful baseball program. The principal only knows about Stock's experience as a girls' volleyball coach, unaware that Stock was a star player for his Division III college baseball team and is a student of the game. Several of the Tigers' returning stars refuse to go out for Coach Stock, who must win over the rest and convince them, the skeptical townspeople and himself that he can fill their former coach's shoes, all while dealing with the reality that this will be the team's final season due to the impending merger. With the support of a young female state auditor whose findings helped push through the merger, and a gadfly baseball writer from Des Moines who is following the team, Kent learns to motivate the team his own way. In May 1991, Norway High's baseball tradition ends on a triumphant but somber note as it wins its 20th state championship in its final season. A video clip of the actual Coach Stock thanking Van Scoyoc publicly for the opportunity opens the final scene. 

=====

Diaspar is a seemingly ageless city in the year 10 billion AD; the last child, Alvin, was born seventeen years ago. Alvin is a child curious about the outside world, which, according to the earliest histories, was destroyed by the Invaders, leaving only Diaspar. Alvin's desire to see the outside world is considered an eccentricity. When Alvin wanders into a tower to watch a sunset, he finds a rock with the inscription: "There is a better way. Give my greetings to the Keeper of the Records. Alaine of Lyndar". Alvin takes the message to Rorden, the Keeper of the Records, who has access to "all the knowledge of Humanity." Rorden finds the record of the message but does not believe Alvin is ready to understand it. Three years later, Rorden discloses that not only has he been waiting for Alvin to age, but he has also been trying to find out how people in the past went outside. He and Alvin find a way out and Alvin finds a destination called Lys. Expecting an abandoned city, Alvin is shocked when he finds a thriving place. The inhabitants are different from his own people, living short but full lives and having telepathic abilities. They know about Diaspar but they like their natural setting. Alvin is prevented from going home as the citizens do not want him to reveal Lys to the people of Diaspar. They contact Rorden, who already knew of Lys, and tell him that Alvin will stay three days to allow the council of Lys time to decide his fate. Alvin makes a friend called Theon, who has a pet giant insect named Krif. While Theon shows Alvin the woods, the boys realize they both know about the legend of Shalmirane, a fortress mentioned in the earliest human history; a fortress which defended against the invaders and signified the end of Man's conquest of space. The boys decide to find the fortress, only a day's travel away. At the fortress they discover that a large wall that defended the building survived, though its rocks were destroyed over time. When they venture into the fortress they find an old man with whom they share a meal and a story of his origins; he was a follower of the Master. This Master came from space during the recovery following the invasion, attracting followers with his powers and machines. When he was dying, he spoke of the "Great Ones" returning. His followers made this into a religion. The religion has been dying, and the old man is one of the few remaining followers; he also has a few of the Master's machines. Alvin asks to borrow one of the old man's robots so he can bring it to Rorden. The boys return to Lys, and Alvin is told to either stay in Lys forever, or return to Diaspar without his memories. Alvin agrees to the mind wipe, but programs the robot to grab him before his mind is wiped and take him to the transit station. He returns home, where he finds Rorden, and they look under the city, where robots are made and repaired by other robots. A repair robot tells them it cannot fix Alvin's robot, but duplicates it. The council questions Alvin and threatens to seal the path to Lys. Alvin shows Rorden a ship, buried under the sands outside the city, that was the Master's ship. Alvin decides to take the ship and go to Lys to return the robot. He meets Theon and speaks with Lys' Council, telling them that Diaspar knows about Lys. Lys realizes that through the appearance of the ship, both of their cultures will be forced to interact. Alvin travels to Shalmirane to return the robot, only to find the Old Man dead, with his robots left to forever guard him. Alvin takes his ship into space, towards an abnormal set of stars. He arrives at the middle star and meets an alien being that is no more than a child but has memories going back further than any human. The alien being, Vanamonde, is convinced that Alvin is the creator it has been waiting for. It follows Alvin home, where people from Lys and Diaspar meet to study it, each using their strengths to learn more about their history. They learn that the history they have known is false. Man only reached Persephone when space came to them, and they found species far greater than Man. They learned from them and decided to grow themselves as humanity before exploring space. They spent half a billion years perfecting the ability to live for infinite amount of time, like Diaspar, or with telepathic abilities, like those in Lys. After improving themselves, they tried to create a pure mentality, a being that was free from physical limitations. They succeeded in creating a pure being, but it was insane. The mentality, called the Mad Mind, almost destroyed the galaxy, and is now locked up, waiting for the time when its bonds break again. After the Mad Mind was imprisoned, the humans created Vanamonde, who is destined to meet (and fight) the Mad Mind at the end of time. 

=====

The film begins with Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo in a hot air balloon over the opening credits. The frog, bear, and "whatever" are investigative reporters for the Daily Chronicle newspaper. Kermit and Fozzie, specifically, play identical twin reporters, which becomes the source of a running gag: nobody can tell they are twins unless Fozzie is wearing his hat. One day, after the trio fail to report on a major jewel robbery, they ask their editor to allow them to travel to London to investigate the robbery and interview the victim, prominent fashion designer Lady Holiday. Statler and Waldorf make appearances throughout the film to heckle them and the audience. With only $12 for the trip, they are forced to travel in an airplane baggage hold and are literally thrown out of the plane as it passes over Britain. They stay at the dilapidated (but free) Happiness Hotel, which is populated by other Muppet characters such as Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, Scooter, the Swedish Chef, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Lew Zealand, Rowlf the Dog, Sam the Eagle, Pops, Beauregard, Crazy Harry, Camilla the Chicken, and Rizzo the Rat. The next morning, when Kermit seeks out Lady Holiday in her office, he finds her newly-hired receptionist, the alluring Miss Piggy, and mistakes her for the fashion designer. Piggy instantly falls in love with the little green reporter. She poses as Lady Holiday, and Kermit asks her out for dinner; to keep up the pose, she allows Kermit to assume she lives at a "highbrow" address. She sneaks into a townhouse at 17 Highbrow Street to wait for him (much to the surprise of the actual upper-class British residents) and they go to dinner at a nightclub, the Dubonnet Club. At the nightclub, the real Lady Holiday's necklace is stolen by her jealous brother Nicky and his accomplices Carla, Marla, and Darla, three of her exploitative fashion models (the very same thieves who robbed her before). After the robbery, Miss Piggy's charade is revealed and she flees, leaving Kermit behind, though the next day, they reconcile after a brief argument. Despite Nicky's instant attraction to Miss Piggy, he and his accomplices frame her for the necklace theft; in the middle of Lady Holiday's fashion show, and plan to steal an even more valuable prize: Lady Holiday's largest and most valuable jewel, the Fabulous Baseball Diamond, now on display at the local Mallory Gallery. Unbeknownst to them, Gonzo overhears their plot. He, Kermit, Fozzie, and the other residents of the Happiness Hotel decide to intercept the thieves and catch them red-handed to exonerate Miss Piggy. The Muppets sneak into the Mallory Gallery and get to the Baseball Diamond at the same time as the thieves. They try to keep the diamond out of the thieves' hands via a game of keep away, but Nicky eventually catches the diamond and takes Kermit hostage. In the meantime, Piggy escapes from prison, and she races to the Mallory Gallery, crashing through the window on a motorcycle that serendipitously fell off a truck in front of her. She knocks Nicky out and dispatches Carla, Marla and Darla with a flurry of furious karate chops. As the police arrive, all charges against Piggy are dropped, Nicky and his accomplices are arrested, and the Muppets get their deserved credit for foiling the heist. The Muppets then return to the United States the same way they departed, being thrown out of the cargo hold and parachuting back to the United States, over the end credits. The film ends with Gonzo yelling out to the audience "Say cheese!" and taking a picture. 

=====

Jim Hawkins is a young orphan who lives in an inn in England with his best friends Gonzo and Rizzo. Jim listens to Billy Bones' tales about the pirate Captain Flint, who buried his treasure trove on a remote island and executed his crew so only he would own the island's map. One night, Bones' crewmate Blind Pew arrives, giving Bones the black spot. Just before dying of a heart attack, Bones gives Jim the treasure map and begs him to go after the treasure and keep both it and the map safe from pirate hands. Just then, an army of pirates attack the inn, destroying it, but Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo escape with the map. The trio takes the map to the half-wit Squire Trelawney (Fozzie Bear), who arranges a voyage to find the treasure. The boys are enlisted aboard the Hispaniola as cabin boys, accompanied by Trelawney, Dr. Livesey (Bunsen Honeydew), and Beaker. The ship is commanded by Captain Abraham Smollett (Kermit the Frog) and his overly strict first mate, Mr. Arrow (Sam Eagle). The boys meet the cook Long John Silver, a one-legged man whom Bones warned them of, but Jim and Silver become good friends. The ship sets sail, but Smollett is suspicious of the crew, believing them to be of shady character. After Gonzo and Rizzo are kidnapped and tortured by three of the crew who have turned out to be pirates, he has the treasure map locked up for safe keeping. It is revealed that Silver and the secret pirates in the crew had been part of Flint's crew and want the treasure for themselves. Silver fools Mr. Arrow into leaving the ship to test out a rowboat, claims he drowned, and has his minions steal the map during Arrow's memorial service. Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo discover Silver's treachery and inform Smollett. Arriving at Treasure Island, Smollett orders the entire crew save the officers to go ashore, planning to keep himself and non-pirate crew aboard the ship and abandon the pirates on the island. However, his plan falls through when it is discovered that Silver has kidnapped Jim to have leverage against the captain. On the island, Silver invites Jim to join them in the treasure hunt using his late father's compass. When Jim refuses, Silver forcibly takes the compass from him. Smollett, Gonzo, and Rizzo land on the island in an effort to rescue Jim. However, unbeknownst to them, Silver had hidden a squad of pirates aboard the Hispaniola before leaving, and they capture the ship in Smollett's absence. On the island, Smollett and the rest of the landing party are captured by the native tribe of pigs, where Smollett reunites with his jilted lover Benjamina Gunn (Miss Piggy), the tribe's queen. The pirates find that the cave in which Flint hid the treasure is empty, leading to a brief mutiny against Silver. Silver reveals that, even though he is a pirate, he cares for Jim and allows him to escape. After reprimending the crew from using a page from the bible to deliver a death sentence, Silver and his crew capture Smollett and Benjamina. Smollett is hung from a cliff to fall to his death. In an effort to save Smollett, Benjamina reveals the treasure is hidden in her house, but when she spits out a kiss from Silver, he hangs her off the cliff as well. Jim rescues his friends and with Mr. Arrow (who is revealed to be alive), the group regains control of the Hispaniola, and rescue Smollett and Benjamina. The group engages the pirates in a sword fight until only Silver is left standing, but he surrenders when he finds himself outnumbered. While the pirates are imprisoned, Silver discovers he still has Mr. Arrow's keys and tries to escape with the treasure. Jim confronts him and threatens to give his position away, while Silver draws his pistol. In a tearful standoff, neither can bring themselves to follow their threats and Jim allows Silver to leave as long as they never cross paths again, much to their disappointment. Silver rows away, but not before returning Jim's compass to him and complimenting his kind heart. However, Mr. Arrow informs Jim and Smollett that the boat Silver used was not seaworthy, and Silver is stranded on the island with no gold. The crew of the Hispaniola sails away into the sunset, but not before sending some scuba-diving rat tourists recover the treasure from the sea, ending the film. 

=====

Gonzo has always been identified as a "whatever"; but, after having disturbing dreams of abandonment and rejection, including him being denied entry to Noah's Ark, he begins to realize just how alone he is in the world. One day, Gonzo tells Kermit that he is getting tired of being referred to as a "whatever." After an alien race appears to be trying to send him a strange mysterious message through his bowl of cereal, Gonzo realizes that he may not be so alone after all and later that evening, he climbs to the rooftop to watch the sky. Suddenly, he is struck by a bolt of lightning, which allows him to communicate with a pair of cosmic knowledge fish, who reveal his origins as an alien from outer space. Unable to convince Kermit and his friends of the aliens' existence, Gonzo is lured by Agent Barker into the clutches of K. Edgar Singer of C.O.V.N.E.T., a government organization disguised as a cement factory. Singer is aware of the aliens' attempts to communicate and thinks that Gonzo is the key to convincing his superiors that aliens do exist. Gonzo and Rizzo are taken to C.O.V.N.E.T. by Agent Barker. Rizzo's antics cause himself to be flushed down a tube by wrestling legend Hulk Hogan and ends up having to go through C.O.V.N.E.T.'s rat training and medical research held by Dr. Tucker, alongside other Muppet rats. After Miss Piggy interrogates Barker, she, Kermit, Fozzie, Pepe, and Animal go to rescue Gonzo and Rizzo from C.O.V.N.E.T., using inventions from Bunsen and Beaker such as a door in a jar, a rubber duck that emits temporary invisibility spray, and mind control gas. An alien channeling his voice through a sandwich asks Gonzo where the alien ship can land, and Gonzo suggests a beach known by the name of Cape Doom, unaware that Singer's assistant Agent Rentro (Bobo the Bear) is listening. The gang arrives at the military base to rescue Gonzo and Rizzo. They use the invisibility spray to enter, but when Fozzie washes his hands upon exiting a restroom it wears off, attracting the attention of a female guard, who Animal chases away. Meanwhile, Rizzo frees Gonzo from the dissection table while the other rats attack Dr. Phil Van Neuter, which is witnessed by Singer and General Luft. Luft feels that his time has been wasted and angrily leaves. Upon discovering from Rentro that Gonzo is heading for Cape Doom, Singer prepares the Subatomic Neutro-Destabilizer to use on the aliens. Rentro tells Singer that his car has been impounded because of unpaid parking tickets; they use the company car—a cement truck. The Muppets rescue Gonzo, then go to Cape Doom where a crowd of alien-happy spectators await their arrival. After an hour-long wait, the ship comes to Earth and the aliens, who all resemble Gonzo, explain that many years ago they lost him, but now welcome him back into the fold. Singer shows up and tries to kill the aliens, ultimately failing to do so (Rentro having removed the weapon's battery) and is laughed at. Gonzo considers going into space with his long-lost family, but chooses to stay with his fellow Muppet Show cast mates with his family's blessing. Singer is invited by the aliens to go with them and leaves as Earth's ambassador. As the Muppets are watching the stars from the roof, Gonzo tells Kermit he wonders why his family asked him to build a Jacuzzi. Pepe and Rizzo look at each other and chuckle, because they had pretended to be aliens and asked him to do it earlier. 

=====

Homer goes to Sprawl-Mart, and he buys Marge a "Kitchen Carnival", a machine that houses a cotton candy maker, a vat of liquid caramel, and a deep fryer. Eventually Homer uses it to make a giant ball of deep-fried, caramel-covered, cotton candy. When it becomes too dirty and inedible, Marge orders him to take it to the dump. While there, he is confronted by a large grizzly bear, from whom he cowers. The bear eventually wanders off without attacking, annoyed by Homer's tearful cowering. The incident becomes well known due to a nearby hunter with a camera. Homer becomes a nervous wreck, hallucinating and seeing bears like Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington Bear, Smokey Bear, the Snuggle Bear, Teddy Grahams, the Chicago Bears, and an "Intensive Care Bear." To add insult to injury, the hunter's tape is shown on the news, and Homer is mocked by many. Homer hires the hunter, named Grant, to assist him in confronting the animal. Homer makes a near-useless suit of armor: despite Marge's objections, Bart, Lenny and Carl join him as they start on their quest. The four of them make camp in the woods. As his homemade armor is hot, Homer eventually takes it off and bathes in a stream, where he is again attacked by the bear. With Bart, Lenny and Carl dancing to the radio and paying no attention, the bear drags Homer to his cave. Deciding to die facing the bear as a man, Homer later discovers that the bear is only angry and hostile because of the painful electrical prod that Grant attached to the bear's ear. To make sure of it, Homer takes the tag off the bear and tries it on himself, resulting in a lot of pain before taking it off. Because of being freed from the electrical prod, the bear reverts to his friendly state, licking Homer and giving him a bear hug as a thanks. Realizing this, Homer becomes friends with the bear. In the meantime, Marge and Lisa have discovered Homer, Bart, and the suit of armor missing, and Marge hires Grant to help track Homer down, though Lisa disapproves of Grant's methods to take down the bear. Homer decides to take the bear to a nearby wildlife refuge, but on the way, they are attacked by Grant and other hunters. To ensure the bear's survival, Homer dresses the bear up in the homemade armor, which surprisingly resists the gunfire and allows the bear to reach the wildlife refuge where he is promptly attacked by Stampy the elephant, but then fights back against him for good. It is then the whole family declares to be proud of Homer for his efforts of saving the bear from the hunters, to which he responds that he loves nature. 

=====

After Bart and Lisa see Krusty the Clown broadcast his show from the Mount Splashmore water park, they pester Homer to take them there. While Marge and Maggie visit a wading pool for infants, Bart, Lisa and Homer line jump and ride an intense water slide called H2WHOA!. Because he is overweight, Homer gets lodged in the water slide mid-course. The park's rescue crew is forced to close the ride and remove the blocked section of pipe using a large crane, with Homer still stuck inside. That night, the news media poke fun at Homer's massive size during their coverage of his mishap at the water park. After having found out that he weighs 260 pounds, Homer vows he will diet and get more exercise. While Homer is looking for his weights in the attic, Bart stumbles upon several old paintings of Ringo Starr that Marge had made as a high school student. Marge reveals she was scolded by her art teacher for painting Starr, whom she had a crush on. She sent a painting to him for his "honest opinion", but she never got a response from the Beatles' drummer. After Lisa suggests that Marge take a painting class at Springfield Community College, she paints Homer asleep on the couch in his underwear, earning praise from her teacher, Professor Lombardo. The painting wins the college art show, earning Marge fame and newspaper headlines. Mr. Burns asks Marge to paint his portrait for a new wing of the Springfield Art Museum. Desperate to please his boss, Homer convinces Marge to agree, although she resists Homer's plea to paint Burns as a beautiful man. While Burns is taking a shower at the Simpsons' house, Marge inadvertently sees him naked. Homer finds he has lost 21 pounds from his exercise regimen and now weighs 239. After Burns disparages Homer's weight and his daughters, Lisa and Maggie, Marge throws him out of the house. She is ready to quit until Homer encourages her to finish the portrait. Marge is also inspired by a letter from Starr, who is determined to answer decades' worth of old fan mail. After working well into the night, she finishes the painting in time for its unveiling at the opening of the museum wing. The painting depicts a naked, frail and weak Burns. The museum visitors are shocked until Marge explains that the portrait shows what Burns really is: a vulnerable human being who will die one day. At first Burns is outraged, but then he praises Marge's painting and thanks her for not making fun of his genitalia -- to which she replies, "I thought I did." 

=====

Karan (Alok Nath) is a poor mechanic who lives in the countryside with his one and only daughter, Suman (Bhagyashree). He decides to venture out and try his luck in business and travel to Dubai so that he can accumulate enough wealth to get his daughter married. Thus, he decides to leave his daughter with his old friend Kishan (Rajeev Verma). Kishan, a wealthy businessman, lets Suman stay at his house while her father is away as he cannot turn down his old friend's request. Suman is befriended by Kishan's son Prem (Salman Khan), who assures her that a boy and a girl can be platonic friends. Prem takes Suman to a party organised by Seema (Pervin Dastur), who is the only daughter of Kishan's business partner, Ranjeet (Ajit Vachani). Jeevan (Mohnish Behl), nephew of Ranjeet, is proud and arrogant and humiliates Suman and Prem (accusing them of falsely claiming to be "just friends"). This is the turning point in the story. Suman leaves the party in tears and distances herself from Prem. At that point, Prem and Suman both realise that they have fallen in love with each other. Prem's mother Kaushalya (Reema Lagoo) probes deeper into Prem and Suman's relationship and approves of Suman as her daughter-in-law, but Kishan is unhappy with the relationship and asks her to leave his house. He feels that she has taken advantage of his hospitality. Karan returns from abroad and is enraged at Kishan's behaviour and Kishan accuses him of plotting to set up Prem and Suman. Karan and Kishan quarrel, and eventually Karan and Suman return to their village, deeply humiliated. Prem refuses to accept the separation, goes to Suman's village and begs to be allowed to marry her. Karan, angered by Kishan's accusations, says that he will allow the marriage on one condition: Prem must prove that he can support his wife by his own effort and live separately. Prem begins to work as a truck driver and laborer in the nearby quarry. At the end of the month, Prem has earned the required money. On the way to Karan's house, he is ambushed by Jeevan and a group of ruffians who attempt to kill him. He survives, but his wages are ruined in the fight. Karan harshly dismisses Prem's effort and cannot believe Prem's story about the ruffians' attack, Prem begs for another chance to prove himself. His sincere determination melts Karan's heart and he agrees to allow his daughter Suman marry Prem. Meanwhile, Ranjeet goes to Kishan (Prem's father) and tells him that Karan has killed his son. Unable to believe this, Kishan goes to Karan's to verify and arrives at Karan's village, only to find Prem alive. When Prem confronts Jeevan, Ranjeet and his supporters bash up both Kishan and Karan, while Jeevan abducts Suman. In the end, Prem, Karan, and Kishan join hands to defeat a common enemy—Ranjeet, his nephew Jeevan and Ranjeet's supporters, and then save Suman. The estrangement between Karan and Kishan come to an end and Prem and Suman marry. 

=====

The tale is a version of a story related both by the Roman historian Livy and in the 13th-century Roman de la Rose. The story opens with a description of the noble Virginius and his daughter, the beautiful, virtuous Virginia. One day, Virginia accompanies her mother to the city on an errand and is spotted by a judge, whose name is later revealed to be Appius, who decides he must have her to himself. It is then that Appius concocts a scheme to take her legally: he contacts a local peasant, named Claudius, who has a reputation for being both bold and cunning and asks for assistance in the matter. Claudius accepts and is rewarded handsomely. Some time later, Claudius appears before Appius in court to file a complaint against Virginius, saying he has witnesses of his misdeeds. Appius declares that he can not try Virginius without him being present. Virginius is called to the court and Claudius begins his accusation: Virginius stole one of Claudius' servants one night while she was young and raised her as his daughter. He then implores Appius to return his slave to him to which Appius agrees, refusing to listen Virginius' defense. Following the sentence, Virginius returns home with a "deathlike" face and calls his daughter into the hall. He then informs Virginia of the events that have transpired and offers her two choices: to be shamed by Appius or to die at her father's hand. Recalling the story of Jephthah, Virginia asks for time to lament her position for a moment before consenting to death by her father's blade. Virginius then beheads Virginia and brings her head to Appius in court. Upon seeing Virginia's severed head, Appius orders that Virginius be hanged immediately. However, a thousand people burst into the room in response and defend Virginius, having heard of Claudius' false charges and reasoning that Appius had arranged it based on the judge's lecherous reputation. The crowd arrests Appius and throws him prison where he commits suicide. Claudius is set to be hanged with the others who had helped Appius in his scheme but Virginius, in a moment of clemency, asks that the peasant be exiled instead. The tale then ends with the Physician warning of the repercussions of sin. 

=====

Invited to Nazi Germany during World War II, Dr. Asagumo is asked by Hitler to collaborate in researching the new weapon "Big X". Concerned about the possible effects of this weapon, Dr. Asagumo intentionally delays the progress of the research, conspiring with his co-researcher, the devious Dr. Engel. Immediately before Germany is defeated by the Allies, Dr. Asagumo is shot to death by the German army but not before implanting a card inscribed with the secret of Big X into his son, Shigeru. An organization claiming alliance with the Nazis appears, steals the card from Shigeru, who now lives in Tokyo, and completes the Big X project, which is revealed to be a drug that can expand the human body without limitation. Dr. Engel's grandson has joined the Nazi Alliance. Recovering Big X from the enemy, Shigeru's son Akira fearlessly challenges the Nazi Alliance and Hans Engel, who are plotting to conquer the world. 

=====

Pete (played by Antti Tarvainen) is a seventeen-year-old boy who loses his consciousness while playing in a pop band. The diagnosis of cancer is harsh and the doctor cannot say for sure whether Pete will celebrate his 18th birthday. Hospitalized, he meets Jusa (Joonas Saartamo), a "tough guy", cancer patient too. They eventually become friends, after a first moment of clash. One night, encouraged by the vodka on Jusa's 18th birthday, Pete confesses his love to Kata (Johanna Rönnlöf), his dream girl since high school. Jusa and Pete travel to Lapland where Kata has a summer job at her uncle's hotel. In Jusa's wild company, Pete experiences something which he never felt before as they decide to take a trip to Mombasa via Lapland, together with Kata, as this is Jusa's last wish before his inevitable death. Jusa has sex with Kata to whom he loses his virginity. Pete acquiesces and stays in the red convertible while Jusa and Kata are having a sexual intercourse in a barn. Afterwards Pete joins them and the three spend the night together sleeping in the barn. Jusa will never see the dreamed beach of Mombasa: he dies in the company of Kata and Pete in Finland on the beach by the shiny blue Baltic Sea. The movie's theme song is "Mombasa" performed by the band Denigrate. The song is a remake of the eponymous 1975 hit performed by Taiska, which is the original Finnish cover of the Italian song "Ibo-le- le". 

=====

A powerful and chiseled 8th-century king named Alobar narrowly escapes regicide at the hands of his own subjects, from a custom of killing the leader at the first sign of aging. After fleeing, no longer a king but only a man, he travels through Eurasia, on a newfound quest for the secret to longevity. Eventually he stumbles upon the stamping grounds of the pungent goat-god Pan, who is slowly losing his godly powers as the world turns toward Christianity. Pan encourages Alobar to continue East in search of the masters of immortality. Meanwhile, in the present day, Priscilla, a part-time waitress and amateur perfumer, is stalled in re-creating the fragrance from the last remaining drops of a three-hundred-year-old perfume bottle in her possession. She rejects the sexual advances of her co-worker Ricki. She begins an affair with an eccentric Irish philosopher, Wiggs Dannyboy, who runs a clinic for immortality research called the Last Laugh Foundation. She attempts to ignore the mysterious deliveries of beets she keeps receiving at her apartment. In New Orleans, Priscilla's stepmother, Madame Devalier, a once successful perfumer, is also working to recreate the same fragrance as Priscilla. Madame D’s protégé V'lu urges her to attempt to formulate a scent that will compete with their historic competition in Paris. The two have their hands on premium Jamaican jasmine supplied by a mysterious man with the helmet of swarming bees, Bingo Pajama, a symbolic figure in the story. In Paris, Claude and Marcel LeFever of the LeFever Parfumarie are not concerned with the small perfume house in New Orleans, but rather their new scent and its synthetic base. Claude has been charged with keeping an eye on Marcel’s stability. Though the "creative nose" of the company, his latest ideas on evolution of a new consciousness have got his uncle, the owner, Luc Lefever, more than a bit unsettled. It is revealed that Luc has placed Marcel’s lover V’lu as a secret agent to send them information about Perfumerie Devalier. In Ancient India, a heinous widow commits suttee, a ritual of self-immolation. Alobar consoles a young girl, Kudra, who was horrified at the sight of the woman attempting to escape the flames of the funeral pyre. Years later, the girl, now a young woman, arrives at a lamasery where Alobar has taken residence for two decades. The two fall in love, and as with most of Robbins' couples, their mutual libido is enormous, and their love quite like something out of a comedic fairy tale. Kudra reveals that she recently escaped suttee herself, and the two find a common bond in their defiance of death. Alobar tells Kudra about his encounter with a mysterious group known as "The Bandaloop Doctors," who are masters of immortality. The two set off to the caves of the Bandaloop to learn immortalist practices. Through the remaining vibrations of the now empty caves, the lovers begin a daily practice of controlled breathing, regular fasting, frequent sex, and bathing in extremely hot water. Alobar and Kudra, successful in their practices and never aging, find they are constantly on the run, moving around Europe to avoid the threat of violence against them for their heathen practices. After several hundred years, they have settled and opened a perfume shop in 17th century Paris. When a group of monks threaten their lives, they try to create a perfume to take "stinky Pan" to the New World with them. When time runs out, they attempt a sort of new transcendental meditation and become separated into different astral planes. Alobar completes the perfume formula with Pan and they voyage to the New World. Alobar ultimately loses not only the love of his life, but the precious bottle of sweetly scented perfume. In the present, the ancient bottle of perfume is stolen by V’lu while Priscilla is attending a dinner with Wiggs Dannyboy at the Last Laugh Foundation. Priscilla goes to New Orleans to retrieve it, but misses Madame Devalier and V'lu. The pair are in hiding after witnessing the murder of Bingo Pajama. Later, Priscilla's relationship with Wiggs Dannyboy is put on hold by a tragedy at the Last Laugh Foundation. But Dannyboy relays the good news that Marcel Lefever and his good friend, the thousand-year old Alobar, will be coming to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and that he will arrive shortly thereafter. Alobar, Marcel, and Priscilla all convene for Mardi Gras, where they encounter Pan one final time. Priscilla recovers the bottle when V'lu and Madame Devalier return. Together, they learn the secret of the mysterious beets, the perfume and the story of Alobar and Kudra. In Paris, the story makes a final stop in another dimension, led by Kudra, discovering the way to immortality. The main message is summarized in the words spoken in Alobar's 8th century Bohemian dialect Erleichda, loosely translated as "lighten up". 

=====

After an unsuccessful attempt to pull her mother up from a recent earthquake, 5-year-old Cro-Magnon Ayla (Emma Floria) is left alone in the woods with a severe injury on her legs from a nearby cave lion; having been suffering from starvation, exhaustion, and infection of her wounds, she collapses, on the verge of death. Eventually, she was rescued by Iza (Pamela Reed), the healer of a group of Neanderthals who call themselves "The Clan", from being eaten alive by vultures against the orders for her to be left alone to die by the clan's chief, Brun (John Doolittle), just because she is clearly a member of "the Others", the distrusted antagonists of the Clan. Brun refuses to accept Ayla as his new daughter when Iza adopts her, only allowing her to stay with the Clan because Iza refuses to abandon her, and with that done, the Clan calls her "Ayla", the closest they can come to pronouncing her birth name. Through meditation, Iza's brother, Creb (the group's shaman), comes to believe that the child may be protected by the spirit of the cave lion, a powerful "totem" that is never given to a woman and only very few men. He cites the cave lion attack the girl experienced shortly before being discovered as proof that its spirit marked her so that she could be adopted into the Clan. After traveling with them for a while and starting to heal, Ayla wanders away from the group when they stop to discuss what they should do since they have not found a new home and she discovers a huge, beautiful cave, perfect for their needs; many of the people begin to regard Ayla as lucky, especially since good fortune continues to come their way as they begin to accept her in the fold. Ayla's different thought processes lead her to break important Clan customs, particularly the taboo against females handling weapons. She is self-willed and spirited, but tries hard to fit in with the Neanderthals, although she has to learn everything first-hand; she does not possess the ancestral memories of the Clan which enable them to do certain tasks after being shown only once. Iza trains Ayla as a medicine woman "of her line", the most prestigious line of medicine women out of all of the Clans. It takes her much longer to train Ayla than it will her own daughter, Uba (Lycia Naff), since Ayla does not possess the memories of the Clan. Iza is concerned that when Ayla grows up nobody will want her as their mate, making her a burden to the Clan. So she trains Ayla to be a highly respected medicine woman who will have her own "status" and will not have to rely on the status of a mate. Meanwhile, Broud (Joey Cramer), the son of Brun, disdains and shuns Ayla at every turn during her childhood, and when they both reach adulthood, Broud (Thomas G. Waites) brutally rapes Ayla (Daryl Hannah) in an impulsive bid to demonstrate his control over her. Broud continues to assault Ayla multiple times daily leaving her despondent, and she soon becomes pregnant. Iza explains to Ayla that her unusual appearance compared to the rest of the Clan will likely preclude her from obtaining a mate before she gives birth, a circumstance Iza's people believe will bring bad luck to their settlement. Ayla, having dreamed of being a mother for most of her life and now convinced that this may be her only chance due to her powerful totem, refuses Iza's suggestion that she take medicine to lose the child. Following a difficult pregnancy and a near-fatal labor, Ayla rejoices in the birth of a son but, due to his appearance being an amalgamation of Clan and Other features, he is considered deformed and almost taken away from her. After Iza's death, Broud is named chief by Brun. Broud's first order is to take Ayla for himself and separate her from her son, giving him to another couple, and he also exiles the already elderly Creb as there's another shaman in charge. Ayla opposes and fights Broud, defeating him. Thus a humiliated Broud agrees to keep Creb with the clan, but Ayla still chooses to leave, saying goodbye to her son, in search of her own people. 

=====

In the Genesis version, the Warner Siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, decide to open up a hip pop culture shop in order to become closer to their favorite movie stars. To this end, they travel across various movie sets in the Warner Bros. studio lot in order to retrieve movie memorabilia to sell. However, once they collect all the memorabilia, Pinky and the Brain attempt to steal them in order to further their world domination plans. In the SNES version, the Brain once again has another plan to conquer the world by deciding to steal the script of the new Warner Bros. film while it was under development. The CEO of Warner Bros. studio reluctantly asks the Warner Siblings for their assistance to retrieve all 24 pages of the script and foil the Brain's plan, which is the primary objective of the game. 

=====

In the frontier town of Stetson City, Arizona, in 1885, business is booming at the Trigger Whisky Saloon. Tornado Lou, the local chanteuse, regales the saloon-goers with a sultry ballad ("Když v báru houstne dým"), while the saloon owner Doug Badman tries in vain to woo her. Two evangelists, Ezra Goodman and his daughter Winnifred, enter the bar attempting to drum up interest in their temperance movement, but the saloon's hard-drinking cowboys scorn them. Into the fracas steps a stranger: Lemonade Joe, a lone cowboy singing the praises of Kolaloka, a non-alcoholic soft drink (in Czech, limonáda, hence the name; the name is throughout the film pronounced phonetically yoh-eh, as a tongue-in-cheek hommage to a practice common among the Czech fans of Wild West novels at the time). His superior gunfighting skill quickly convinces the saloon-goers of the benefits of teetotalism. Before long, Joe and the Goodmans have joined forces, Joe has begun courting Winnifred, and all the cowboys in Stetson City have transferred their loyalty to the cathedral-like God Bless Kolaloka Saloon ("Arizóna, to je pravých mužů zóna"). Doug Badman's business is saved by the arrival of his brother Horace, alias "Hogofogo, the Master Criminal of the Wild West". In a dramatic public appearance, Hogofogo convinces the Kolaloka customers to go back to Trigger Whisky, and soon the old saloon is back in business ("Whisky to je moje gusto"). Joe, unaware of the developments, is riding on the prairie ("Sou fár tů jů áj méj") until, thanks to a mirage, he discovers that Hogofogo has his own designs on Winnifred. Joe saves Winnifred from his clutches, but in the ensuing fight, his account book falls to the ground. Reading it, Winnifred discovers the truth: Joe is not the selfless hero he appears, but rather a traveling salesman for Kolalok & Son, makers of Kolaloka. Delighted at the news, Winnifred pledges her love for Joe. However, the chanteuse Tornado Lou has also fallen for Joe, imagining him as the ideal lover who will make her "different, better." Joe returns to Trigger Whisky Saloon, where, in another display of fighting skill, he wins the customers back to Kolaloka once again ("Můj bóže, můj bóže"). Hogofogo, in disguise, attempts to shoot Joe, but Joe instead engages him in a gunfighting chase through the town, trying to force him into signing a testimonial in favor of Kolaloka. Though Hogofogo seems momentarily to have the upper hand ("Horácova polka"), Tornado Lou attacks Hogofogo and saves Joe's life. Joe, too commercially oriented to understand her devotion, spurns her advances. In misery, she vows to help the Badmans lure Joe to his death. Their plan begins with Hogofogo, now disguised as a blind piano tuner ("Horácův pohřební blues"), kidnapping Winnifred as a bait to lure Joe to Dead Man's Valley ("Balada Mexico Kida"). There, the Badmans' henchmen, led by Grimpo, capture him and torture him, but Lou has a change of heart and saves his life again, reuniting him with Winnifred. Meanwhile, Hogofogo waits for his henchmen to deliver Winnifred to his room. Instead, Joe appears and forces him to sign the testimonial. Hogofogo, taking advantage of Joe's aversion to spirits, ambushes him with a volley of gunshot and leaves him dead. Hogofogo tracks Winnifred down to the Stetson City cemetery, where he attempts once again to kidnap her. When the now-moral Tornado Lou stops him, he kills her; in revenge, Doug Badman kills Hogofogo, and in his death throes, Hogofogo kills Doug. Just as he is about to shoot Winnifred, Lemonade Joe enters alive and well; surveying the three dead bodies, he notices their birthmarks and discovers that they are his long-lost siblings. He revives them with the same medicine that has just brought him back to life: the miraculous soft drink Kolaloka. Joe's father—none other than Mr. Kolalok himself, owner of Kolalok & Son—enters just in time for a happy ending, in which villains and heroes alike agree to work together and merge their businesses to create a new drink, Whiskola. The entire Kolalok family, including the newly married Winnifred and Joe, ride off into the sunset in a stagecoach as the population of Stetson City cheer. 

=====

The setting is the east shore of the Caspian Sea (modern Turkmenistan) where the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov has been fighting the Civil War in Russian Asia for a number of years. The movie opens with a panoramic shot of a bucolic Russian countryside. Katerina Matveyevna, Sukhov's beloved wife, is standing in a field. Awakening from this daydream, Sukhov is walking through the Central Asian desert – a stark contrast to his homeland. He finds Sayid buried in the sand. Sayid, an austere Central Asian, will come to Sukhov's rescue in sticky situations throughout the movie. Sukhov frees Sayid, and they strike a friendly but reticent relationship. While traveling together they are caught up in a desert fight between a Red Army cavalry unit and Basmachi guerrillas. The cavalry unit commander, Rakhimov, leaves to Sukhov the harem, which was abandoned by the Basmachi leader Abdullah, for temporary protection. He also leaves a young Red Army soldier, Petrukha, to assist Sukhov with the task, and proceeds to pursue the fleeing Abdullah. Sukhov and women from Abdullah's harem return to a nearby shore village. There, Sukhov charges the local museum's curator with protecting the women, and prepares to head home. Sukhov hopes to "modernize" the wives of the harem, and make them part of the modern society. He urges them to take off their burqa and reject polygamy. The wives are loath to do this, though, and as Sukhov takes on the role of protector, the wives declare him their new husband. Soon, looking for a seaway across the border, Abdullah and his gang come to the same village and find Abdullah's wives. Sukhov is bound to stay. Hoping to obtain help and weapons, Sukhov and Petrukha visit Pavel Vereschagin, a former Tsar's customs official. Vereschagin warms to Petrukha who reminds him of his dead son, but after discussing the matter with his nagging wife, Vereschagin refuses. Sukhov finds a machine gun and a case of dynamite that he plants on Abdullah's ship. Meanwhile, Abdullah has confronted his wives, and is preparing to punish them for their "dishonor", as they did not kill themselves when Abdullah left them. Sukhov manages to capture and lock Abdullah as a hostage, but after he leaves, Abdullah convinces Gyulchatai, the youngest wife of the harem, to free him and then kills Gyulchatai and Petrukha. The museum curator shows Sukhov an ancient underground passage that leads to the sea. Sukhov and the women of the harem attempt to escape through the passage, but on arriving at the seashore they are impelled to hide in a large empty oil tank. Abdullah discovers that and plans on setting the oil tank on fire. Enraged at the cold-hearted murder of Petrukha, Vereschagin decides to help Sukhov and takes Abdullah's ship. Sayid also helps Sukhov, and together they fend off Abdullah's gang. Vereschagin, unaware of the dynamite on the ship and not hearing Sukhov's shouted warnings, tragically dies on the exploding ship. Sukhov kills Abdullah and his gang, and returns the harem to Rakhimov. He then begins his journey home on foot, having refused a horse since a horse is merely "a nuisance". Whether Sukhov will make it home to his beloved wife is unclear: the revolution is not over in Central Asia, and an exemplary Red Army soldier like Sukhov may well be needed. 

=====

The Iceman Cometh is set in New York in 1912 in Harry Hope's downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house. The patrons, twelve men and three prostitutes, are dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in one another's company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They drift purposelessly from day to day, coming fully alive only during the semi-annual visits of salesman Theodore "Hickey" Hickman. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the East Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to arrive in time for Harry's birthday party. The first act introduces the various characters as they bicker among themselves, showing how drunk and delusional they are, all the while awaiting Hickey. Joe Mott insists that he will soon re-open his casino. The English Cecil "The Captain" Lewis and South African Piet "The General" Wetjoen, who fought each other during the Boer War, are now good friends, and both insist that they'll soon return to their nations of origin. Harry Hope has not left the bar since his wife Bess's death 20 years ago. He promises that he'll walk around the block on his birthday, which is the next day. Pat McGloin says he hopes to be reinstated into the police force, but is waiting for the right moment. Ed Mosher prides himself on his ability to give incorrect change, but he kept too much of his illegitimate profits to himself and was fired; he says he will get his job back someday. Hugo Kalmar is drunk and passed out for most of the play; when he is conscious, he pesters the other patrons to buy him a drink. Chuck Morello says that he will marry Cora tomorrow. Larry Slade is a former syndicalist-anarchist who looks pityingly on the rest. Don Parritt is a former anarchist who shows up later in the play to talk about his mother (Larry's ex- girlfriend) to Larry; specifically her arrest due to her involvement in the anarchist movement. When Hickey finally arrives, his behavior throws the characters into turmoil. With as much charisma as ever, he insists that he sees life clearly now as never before because he no longer drinks. Hickey wants the characters to cast away their delusions and accept that their heavy drinking and inaction mean that their hopes will never be fulfilled. He takes on this task with a near-maniacal fervor. How he goes about his mission, how the other characters respond, and their efforts to find out what has wrought this change in him, take over four hours to resolve. During and after Harry's birthday party, most seem to have been somewhat affected by Hickey's ramblings. Larry pretends to be unaffected, but when Don reveals he was the informant responsible for the arrest of his own mother (Larry's former girlfriend), Larry rages at him; Willie decides McGloin's appeal will be his first case, and Rocky admits he is a pimp. Most of the men Hickey talked with do go out into the world—dressed up, hopeful of turning their lives around—but they fail to make any progress. Eventually, they return and are jolted by a sudden revelation. Hickey, who had earlier told the other characters first that his wife had died and then that she was murdered, admits that he is the one who killed her. The police arrive, apparently called by Hickey himself, to arrest Hickey. Hickey justifies the murder in a dramatic monologue, saying that he did it out of love for her. He relates that his father was a preacher in the backwoods of Indiana. Evidently he was both charismatic and persuasive, and it was his inheriting these traits which led Hickey to become a salesman. An angry kid trapped in a small town, Hickey had no use for anyone but his sweetheart, Evelyn. Evelyn's family forbade her to associate with Hickey, but she ignored them. After Hickey left to become a salesman, he promised he would marry Evelyn as soon as he was able. He became a successful salesman, then sent for her and the two were very happy until Hickey became increasingly guilty following his wife's constant forgiveness of his infidelities and drinking. He then recounts how he murdered her to free her from the pain of his persistent philandering and drinking because she loved him too much to live apart from him. But, in retelling the murder, he laughs and tells Evelyn, "Well, you know what you can do with that pipe dream now, don't you?" In realizing he said this, Hickey breaks down completely. He realizes that he went truly insane and that people need their empty dreams to keep existing. The others agree and decide to testify to his insanity during Hickey's trial despite Hickey's begging them to let him get the death sentence. He no longer wishes to live now that he has no illusions about life. They return to their empty promises and pipe dreams except for Parritt, who runs to his room and jumps off the fire escape, unable to live with the knowledge of what he has done to his mother after discarding the last of his lies about his action and motivation for it. He first claims that he did it due to patriotism and then for money, but finally admits he did it because he hated his mother, who was so obsessed with her own freedom of action that she became self-centered and alternately ignored or dominated him. Despite witnessing the young man's fatal leap, and acknowledging the futility of his own situation ("by God, there's no hope! I'll never be a success...Life is too much for me!"), Larry fears death as much as life and is consequently left in limbo. 

=====

From Mikage's love of kitchens to her job as a culinary teacher's assistant to the multiple scenes in which food is merely present, Kitchen is a short window into the life of a young Japanese woman and her discoveries about food and love amongst a background of tragedy. In Kitchen, a young Japanese woman named Mikage Sakurai struggles to overcome the death of her grandmother. She gradually grows close to one of her grandmother's friends, Yuichi, from a flower shop and ends up staying with him and his transgender mother, Eriko. During her stay, she develops affection for Yuichi and Eriko, almost becoming part of their family. However, she moves out after six months as she finds a new job as a culinary teacher's assistant. When she finds that Eriko was murdered, she tries to support Yuichi through the difficult time, and realises that Yuichi is probably in love with her. Reluctant to face her own feelings for him, she goes away to Izu for a work assignment, while Yuichi stays in a guest-house. However, after going to a restaurant to eat katsudon, she realises she wants to bring it to Yuichi. She goes to Yuichi’s guest-house and sneaks inside his room in the middle of the night to bring him katsudon. There Mikage tells him she doesn’t want to lose him and proposes to build a new life together. In Moonlight Shadow, a woman named Satsuki loses her boyfriend Hitoshi in an accident and tells us: "The night he died my soul went away to some other place and I couldn't bring it back". She becomes friendly with his brother Hiiragi, whose girlfriend died in the same crash. On one insomniac night out walking she meets a strange woman called Urara who has also lost someone. Urara introduces her to the mystical experience of The Weaver Festival Phenomenon, which she hopes will cauterize their collective grief. 

=====

Paul Benjamin is a CPA in New York. However, his staid life is overturned when his daughter, Carol, and wife, Esther, are attacked by muggers. His wife does not survive the attack, and his traumatized daughter is left in a vegetative state. Forced to reevaluate his views, Benjamin becomes a vigilante and is eager for vengeance. On a business trip in Arizona, he buys a revolver and brings it back to New York. Benjamin shoots a mugger who accosts him. Benjamin continues to take justice into his own hands, drawing would-be muggers into traps by using himself as the bait. In one case, he rents a car, pulls it over to the side of the road, and writes an "Out of Gas" sign on the vehicle. He then hides, waiting for someone to steal the car. When some lawbreakers do so, he shoots them. It is only within the last 50 pages of the first novel that Benjamin slays his first victim. The second novel, Death Sentence, states that Benjamin murdered seventeen people over five weeks. 

=====

Yukio Tanaka, known as "Koyuki" by his friends, is a regular 14-year-old Japanese boy starting eighth grade in junior high school. His boring life is changed when he saves an odd-looking dog, named Beck, from some kids. Beck's owner turns out to be an emerging rock musician, 16-year-old Ryusuke Minami, who soon influences Koyuki to start playing the guitar. The story focuses on the trials and tribulations of their rock band named Beck, and Koyuki's relationships with its members, in particular Ryusuke and his 14-year-old half-sister Maho. After hanging out with Ryusuke and seeing him play with his former band, Koyuki slowly becomes interested in Western rock music. Ryusuke gives him a guitar, but when Koyuki breaks it, Ryusuke tells him never to speak to him again. At the same time, Ryusuke forms his new band Beck, with vocalist Tsunemi Chiba, bassist Yoshiyuki Taira, and Togo, the drummer from his previous band. Koyuki begins working for, and learning guitar from, 44-year-old Kenichi Saitou in exchange to have the guitar fixed. He reunites with Ryusuke a year later, and begins to rehearse with Beck. Koyuki then makes friends with his classmate Yuji "Saku" Sakurai. When Togo leaves the band, Ryusuke has Koyuki and Saku join Beck as support musicians, becoming full members only when the band hears Koyuki sing. Eventually Beck releases their first album, which gets released on an independent record label in the United States, under the band name Mongolian Chop Squad. After gaining popularity from their US album and Koyuki being in an internationally screened concert documentary, Beck earns a spot at the music festival Grateful Sound 5, where they put on the most talked about show of the whole festival. (The live-action film adaptation ends here.) However, circumstances cause them to part ways, making it their last performance. Finding life tedious without being in Beck, Koyuki slowly gets the members back together, except Ryusuke, whose whereabouts are unknown. They perform a few shows as a quartet, before getting an offer to tour the US based on their Grateful Sound 5 performance. After Koyuki and Saku drop out of school to do the tour, Beck heads to America. But after several bad performances, they are about to get kicked off the tour before reuniting with Ryusuke in Seattle. (The anime adaptation ends here.) The rest of the tour is a hit and they end up appearing on national TV before heading back to Japan. After releasing two singles, Beck goes on a nationwide tour of Japan and earn a spot at Grateful Sound 7. However, they are later cut from the lineup. They slowly bounce back after forming a tour with several similar-sounding bands, get signed to a popular British indie record label, and start recording their first full album. The now-famous director who created the concert documentary Koyuki once appeared in ends up directing their first music video. Their album and music video do well both in Japan and England, earning them numerous magazine articles in both countries. After another nationwide tour of Japan, they do a short tour of England, including a spot at the relaunch of the legendary Avalon Festival. The band then signs to a major international record label and records their major debut album in New York. With the album hugely successful worldwide, they tour Japan and America extensively, and the series then ends with Beck headlining the main stage at Grateful Sound 9. 

=====

The novel begins with the phrase, "In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day." The novel is purely poetical, and its protagonist in time aspires to become a poet who invests the lives of men with reality in its most beautiful of forms. Peter Camenzind easily reminds one of Hesse's other protagonists, i.e. Siddhartha, Goldmund, and Harry Haller. Like them, he suffers deeply and undergoes many intellectual, physical, and spiritual journeys. In the course of his many journeys, he will come to experience the diverse landscapes of Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland, as well as the wide range of emotions that humans exhibit at different stages in their lives. In a later stage of his life, he will embody the ideal of St. Francis as he cares for a cripple. Peter Camenzind, as a youth, leaves his mountain village with a great ambition to experience the world and to become one of its denizens. Having experienced the loss of his mother at an early age, and with a desire to leave behind a callous father, he heads to university. As he progresses through his studies, he meets and falls in love with the painter, Erminia Aglietti and becomes a close friend to a young pianist named Richard. Greatly saddened because of the latter's death, he takes up wandering to soak up the diverse experiences of life. Ever faced with the vicissitudes of life, he continually takes up alcohol as a means to confront the harshness and inexplicable strangeness of life. He also meets and falls in love with Elizabeth, even though she will later marry another man. However, his journey through Italy changes him in many respects and enhances his ability to love life and see beauty within all things. Only when he becomes friends with Boppi, an invalid, does he truly experience what it means to love another human being. In time, he comes to see in Boppi a wonderful reflection of humanity in its noblest form, and the two forge an indelible friendship. After Boppi dies, Peter Camenzind returns to his village and takes care of his aging father, even as he plans out the completion of his life's great work. 

=====

CIA director Maxwell Danforth (Burt Lancaster) watches a recording of agent Laurence Fassett (John Hurt) and his wife having sex. When Fassett goes into the bathroom to have a shower, two KGB assassins enter the bedroom and kill his wife. The CIA had in fact sanctioned her killing. Fassett, unaware of his employer's involvement, was consumed by grief and rage. He hunted the assassins, eventually uncovering a Soviet spy network known as Omega. Three of the top agents in the Omega network are Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson), a television producer who knows martial arts; Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper), a plastic surgeon; and stock trader Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon). Rather than arrest the three members, which would alarm the KGB, Fasset proposes to the CIA director that they turn one of them to the side of the West in order to unravel the entire network more efficiently. Fassett sees an opportunity in John Tanner (Rutger Hauer), a controversial television journalist who is highly critical of government abuses of power. Tanner has been close friends with the three agents since all four were at Berkeley together, and Fassett believes Tanner can successfully turn one of them. The CIA contacts Tanner. He and Fassett meet, and Fassett tells him that his closest friends are Omega agents. Although initially highly skeptical, Tanner becomes more convinced as Fassett shows him videotaped evidence of the three traitors talking with a Russian man, whom Fassett identifies as a KGB agent. In three different video clips, the KGB agent discusses with Cardone the prospect of "targeting" Tanner, seeing him as a threat. Tremayne expresses his desire to leave the country when "it" goes down; Osterman talks about wanting to see "radical change" in the current system, but makes clear that he's only interested if paid handsomely, asking for a Swiss bank account. Tanner eventually agrees to try turning one of them at their annual reunion, which is coming up that weekend (these reunions are named "Ostermans", in honour of their initial sponsor, Bernie Osterman), which this year is being held at Tanner's house; but only on the condition that Danforth, the CIA director, appear as a guest on his show. Danforth agrees to this condition. Tanner's troubled marriage is not improved when he asks his wife, Ali (Meg Foster), to take their son out of town for the weekend so the two of them would miss the reunion. He does not want them involved but cannot tell her why, which upsets her. Fassett tells Tanner that his wife and child are safer at home where the CIA can keep an eye on them, but Tanner disagrees. While driving his wife and son to the airport, their car is ambushed, and Ali and the child are kidnapped. With Fassett's intervention, they are rescued unhurt and the kidnapper is shot dead. In the meantime, Tanner's home has been wired with closed circuit video so Fassett can gather more evidence. Now that Ali is aware Tanner is involved with the CIA (although not knowing the details), Tanner has her and their son stay at the house for the weekend. Fassett sets himself up in a large van on the grounds with a squad of CIA agents on the outskirts of Tanner's property. Osterman, Tremayne and Cardone arrive for the weekend, each having recently encountered difficulties engineered by the CIA in order to unsettle them and make them receptive to defection. The mood is tense. On the second night, Fassett sends a video feed to Tanner's dining room television, showing a clip about Switzerland that focuses on Swiss bank accounts and illegal financial manipulation. Virginia, Tremayne's wife, becomes furious, and Ali punches her in the face. Osterman tells Tanner that he's getting himself into something out of his league, and everyone retires to their rooms. Soon after, Tanner's son discovers the severed head of the family dog in the refrigerator, but it turns out to be fake. Tanner has had enough and demands that his guests leave. Tanner confronts Fassett and insists he arrest the suspects. Fassett sends an order to the CIA guards to kill Osterman. Cardone and Tremayne and their wives escape in Tanner's RV. Tanner confronts Osterman and assaults him. Osterman easily overpowers him and demands an explanation. Tanner says that he knows that Osterman and his friends are Soviet agents. Osterman dismisses the accusation and explains that they have been illegally sheltering money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid taxation, but insists they are not traitors. Fassett appears on the television and admits that he knows Osterman and his friends are only tax evaders. Fassett kills the Tremaynes and Cardones by remotely detonating an explosive device on the RV. He sends his soldiers into the house to kill Osterman and Tanner. Fassett taunts Tanner during the attack on the house, revealing that Danforth authorized his wife's murder. Fassett offers to release Tanner's family if Tanner will expose Danforth on television. Sometime later, Danforth prepares for his remote interview with Tanner. Danforth is at his office and will speak into a camera and microphone crewed by the TV station. Tanner introduces Fassett on the air and Danforth becomes enraged when he realizes that he has been tricked. Fassett, who is also being filmed remotely, exposes Danforth as a murderer. Fassett's remote location is a secret, but it is clear someone is coming for him. It is revealed that Tanner himself has pre-recorded his questions for both men and has used the video feed to locate Fassett, whom he shoots and kills. He then rescues his wife, his son, and his dog. 

=====



=====

Having taken a break from their adventures, the Battletoads Rash, Zitz, and Pimple spend some time in the Lost Vega system. The toads find themselves entranced by the alluring charms of an exotic dancer, but are ambushed when the dancer is revealed to be the Dark Queen. During the ensuing fight, Rash and Pimple are taken away to the planet Armagedda, with Zitz successfully escaping to the Vulture spacecraft of Professor T. Bird and leaving him as the only available toad to rescue his partners. With aid in the form of briefing comments from the Prof and while also receiving taunts from the Dark Queen herself, Zitz wages a one- toad war on the Dark Queen's forces in planet Armagedda, ultimately culminating with a brutal showdown with the crazed biogen Robo-Manus. After he is defeated, Zitz succeeds in rescuing Rash and Pimple and the trio returns safe to the Vulture spacecraft along with Professor T. Bird. Though she does not face off the 'Toads in combat, the once again defeated Dark Queen swears to the heroes that she will be back with a vengeance. 

=====

SaGa Frontier 2 has two separate storylines: one is the history of Gustave XIII of the country of Finney, and the other concerns a character named Wil Knights. The game takes place in the land of Sandail, with the game's timeline spanning several decades. Gustave XIII is the former prince of Thermes, the capital of Finney, and was intended to be the heir to the throne of his father, Gustave XII. The son is disinherited and exiled by his father when, at the age of 7, he fails to manifest any magical abilities, known as Anima, during a ritual known as the Firebrand Ceremony. His mother, Queen Sophie, unsuccessfully tries to prevent Gustave XIII's banishment. She and Gustave XIII are banished from the castle by Gustave XII and are forced to live in the slums of Thermes. Master Cielmer, a magician as well as teacher and councilor to Gustave XIII assists both mother and son in escaping Thermes and seeking asylum in the city Gruegel in the kingdom of Na. Despite being granted a mansion to live in by the king of Na, Gustave is still resentful of his rejection and lack of magical powers. At age seventeen he apprentices as a blacksmith and learns to fight, and it is during his period his mother dies. He then moved to the city-state of Wide where he insinuates himself with the ruler and overthrows him. Five years later, Gustaves father dies, and at the behest of his best friend Kelvin decides to claim the throne. A war then breaks out between Gustave XIII and his half-brother in which Gustave conquers Finney and becomes the ruler of all the surrounding kingdoms except Na. This one holdout is controlled by Phillip, Gustave's brother, who blames Gustave for their mother's death. During the subsequent conflict, Gustave admits he lacks magical powers, and abdicates in favor of Phillip. Gustave then build a city of his own called Hahn Nova, but it is overrun by monsters and burned to the ground. The fate of Gustave and his friends is left a mystery. The secondary playable storyline in the game is that of Wil Knights, who is a member of a rich family of "diggers"; after the death of his parents, Wil relocated to the kingdom of Westia. At the age of fifteen Wil sets out to become a famous digger: after hearing about a legendary object known as "The Egg", Wil sets out to find it. After adventures in the Arctic region of Weissland, Wil becomes known as "Tycoon Wil", though he continues to search for the Egg. Wil then has a son named Rich who goes in search of the Egg and finds a young woman named Misty in possession of it. And even though his wife announces their baby girl Ginny has been born, he becomes obsessed with the woman and the Egg, and never returns from his quest. The final part of the story involves Ginny Knights following the path of her father and grandfather in searching for the legendary object. Upon hearing of the evil powers of the Egg, and its role in leading her father to his death, Ginny decides to find and destroy the object. She eventually discovers the Egg is now possessed by "Fake Gustave", a pretender to the throne of Finney trying to take power in the wake of Gustave XII's death. 

=====

Set in a rundown Danish seaside resort, it depicts a day in the life of Bernie, a self-destructive alcoholic, as he takes Winnie, a young girl with a leg brace, to the resort despite constant rain. Though Winnie calls Bernie "uncle", he is likely her biological father. Over the course of the day, they encounter various people whom Bernie alternately berates and scams for alcohol, while Winnie is often left alone to fend for herself. 

=====

On Christmas Eve, Daniel Grudge (Hayden), a rich American industrialist, sits alone in a dark room of his mansion playing a record of a World War II-era popular song, "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)" by The Andrews Sisters. He looks at a framed display of war medals on the wall and seems about to cry. He shuts off the player, but as he leaves the room, he hears the record start to play again of its own accord, although the record player is still shut off. Downstairs, he meets a visitor, his nephew Fred (Gazzara). Grudge caustically notes that Fred always comes to him for help with various causes and asks what cause he is promoting this time. Fred complains that Grudge used his influence to cancel a "cultural exchange" program that Fred's university had planned with a Polish counterpart. In the ensuing argument with Fred, Grudge takes the isolationist position that the United States should stay out of international affairs, and not participate in cultural exchange programs, foreign aid to the needy, or discussions at the United Nations. Grudge distrusts foreign countries, and contends that the U.S. should build up its arsenal, including nuclear weapons, and make sure other countries know the U.S. is willing to use them. Fred disagrees, arguing that the U.S. should help all people in need and foster international communication in order to avoid future wars and nuclear destruction. As Fred leaves, he reminds his uncle that they have one thing in common: their love for Grudge's son Marley, who was killed in WWII twenty years earlier, on Christmas Eve 1944. After Fred leaves, Grudge once again hears the record playing upstairs, and sees a short vision of the deceased Marley sitting at the dining room table. Suddenly Grudge finds himself aboard a World War II-era troopship, which is carrying many coffins. A soldier on board introduces himself as the Ghost of Christmas Past (Lawrence) and explains that the ship is carrying the dead of all nations and from all past wars, with more war dead arriving even as he speaks. The Ghost suggests that the way to stop the killing is to spend more time talking to resolve conflicts, since when talking stops, fighting starts. He and Grudge revisit a scene from Grudge's past in which Grudge, a Navy commander, accompanied by his WAVE driver (Saint), visited a hospital in devastated Hiroshima and saw Japanese schoolchildren whose faces had been destroyed by the atom bomb. Grudge walks through a door and meets the Ghost of Christmas Present (Hingle), who is feasting on an excessively large Christmas dinner on Grudge's dining table under Grudge's chandelier. This new Ghost turns on a light and shows Grudge that right next to the dining room is an internment camp full of displaced persons from different nations who are poor, hungry and lacking adequate shelter. These people search through the snow for food as the Ghost eats in front of them. When Grudge criticizes the Ghost for this behavior, the Ghost reminds Grudge of his earlier statement to Fred that refusing donations to the needy would make them less needy and more self-reliant. The Ghost harangues Grudge with statistics and information about needy people in the world and finally in a fit of anger pulls the tablecloth, dumping huge amounts of leftover food on the floor. Grudge cannot stand any more and runs away into the dark. Grudge emerges into destroyed ruins that he recognizes as having been his local town hall, where he encounters the Ghost of Christmas Future (Shaw). This Ghost explains that the town hall was wrecked in a disastrous nuclear conflict that also annihilated most of the world's people. A handful of survivors enter and prepare for a meeting. Their leader is a demagogue called "Imperial Me" (Sellers) who wears a Pilgrim suit and a cowboy hat cut into a crown. The crowd cheers as Imperial Me is paraded in and gives a speech exhorting each person to act as an individual in his or her own self-interest. Grudge watches his butler, Charles (Rodriguez), try unsuccessfully to convince the crowd that acting collectively for the greater good of all is essential for humanity's survival. Imperial Me and the crowd mock Charles as crazy and beat him. Finally Imperial Me has Charles brought forward and charges him with treason. Charles tries to escape and is shot dead by a little boy in a cowboy outfit. Grudge's cook Ruby (Teer) weeps over Charles' body, while the crowd, led by Imperial Me, enthusiastically prepares to first kill the people across the river who had approached them wanting to talk, and then kill off each other until only one person is left. An agitated Grudge asks the Ghost if this is the world "as it must be, or as it might be". The Ghost doesn't answer and leaves Grudge in the ruins of his own study. A shaken Grudge awakens back in the real world on Christmas morning, on the floor of his (intact) study with the phone in his hand. His nephew Fred appears and says that Grudge called him at 3 a.m. and asked him to stop by on his way to church. Grudge apologizes to Fred for his statements of the previous evening and, without explaining the reason for his change of heart, indicates cautious support for the United Nations and international diplomacy as a way to prevent future wars. Grudge further shows his new internationalism by enjoying a radio broadcast of the children of UN delegates singing Christmas carols in their native languages. Fred leaves and Grudge, rather than have Charles serve him on a tray as usual, goes into the kitchen to have his Christmas morning coffee with Charles and Ruby. 

=====

The opening titles announce it is set "possibly around 1933." The story concerns the 168-year-old Fu Manchu, who must duplicate the ingredients to the elixir vitae (which gives him extended life) after the original is accidentally destroyed by one of Fu's minions. When the diamond "The Star of Leningrad" is stolen by a clockwork spider from a Soviet exhibition in Washington D.C., the F.B.I. sends a pair of special agents to seek the assistance of Scotland Yard as a card from Fu Manchu's organisation the Si-Fan has been left at the crime. Sir Roger Avery of the Yard feels this is a job for Fu's nemesis, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, now retired. Nayland Smith correctly surmises that Fu Manchu will steal the identical twin to the missing diamond that is held in the Tower of London. Smith also predicts that Fu will be thwarted by the tight security (several aged Beefeaters) at the Tower, then will kidnap Queen Mary to gain the jewel. He recruits a woman police constable to impersonate the Queen and fool Fu's gang. The plan backfires somewhat, however, when she falls in love with her captor. One of the officers, an obese Chinese cuisine loving glutton who has been ordered by the doctor to walk around for five miles a day on stilts, is promised access to Fu's outdoor restaurant of Chinese food and helps them steal the diamond. In the finale to the film, Nayland and his fellow officers visit Fu Manchu's mountain base in his flying country house, "The Pride of Wiltshire", taking the real diamond with him which Fu Manchu later uses to make himself young and vibrant again. Before taking the elixir, Fu Manchu warns Smith that his latest fiendish plot will wipe out his enemies. Smith rejoins his fellow officers in time to see a rejuvenated Fu Manchu sporting an Elvis Presley type jumpsuit, rise from the floor and, with his cohorts now forming a rock band, sing the song "Rock-a- Fu". 

=====

Lieutenant General Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford) is brought to a maximum security military prison to begin a ten-year sentence for his decision (in violation of a presidential order) to send U.S. troops on a mission in Burundi, resulting in the deaths of eight soldiers. Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini), the prison's commandant, is a great admirer of the general, but is offended when Irwin criticizes Winter's much-prized military artifacts collection, calling it something no actual battlefield veteran would ever have. Winter, who has never seen combat, resents the remark. He then takes exception to what he perceives as Irwin's attempt to change the attitudes of the prisoners, his admiration for Irwin fading fast. On one occasion, Irwin is punished harshly after stopping a guard from clubbing a prisoner, Corporal Ramon Aguilar (Clifton Collins, Jr.), who had made the mistake of saluting Irwin in the prison yard (a tenet of Winter's methods for running the prison is that the prisoners are told "you are no longer soldiers" and prohibited from acting in any way like military servicemen). Continuing to observe acts of cruelty, Irwin attempts to unify the prisoners by building a "castle wall" of stone and mortar at the facility, which in many ways resembles a medieval castle. Envying the respect Irwin is clearly receiving, Winter orders his guards to destroy the wall. Aguilar, directly involved in its construction, takes a stand before the bulldozer. Winter orders sadistic sharpshooter Cpl. Zamorro (David Alford) with a coded hand gesture to fire a normally non-lethal rubber bullet directly at Aguilar's head, killing him. After the wall is destroyed, Irwin and the inmates pay final respects to Aguilar in formation. Winter later tries to make amends with Irwin, who calls him a disgrace to the uniform and demands his resignation. The prisoners begin to behave like soldiers around Irwin, using code words and gestures, infuriating the commandant. Winter reaches out to an anti-social prisoner named Yates (Mark Ruffalo), a former officer and Apache helicopter pilot convicted of running a drug-smuggling ring. Yates is bribed to inform about Irwin's plans in exchange for a reduced sentence. He lets the commandant know that Irwin intends to take over the prison, then raise the flag upside down, a signal of distress. Irwin organizes a plot to throw the prison into chaos. His intent is to show a friend, Brigadier General Wheeler (Delroy Lindo), the commandant's superior officer, that the commandant is unfit and should be removed from command under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. During a visit, Winter receives a letter threatening the kidnapping of General Wheeler by the prisoners if he doesn't resign. After ordering his men into action, Winter discovers that the scheme was a just a bluff. Irwin uses the event to gain intelligence on how the prison guards would react during an actual uprising. Wheeler, who has made it clear that he hates Winter and loves Irwin, nevertheless respects Winter's angry argument that Wheeler has no idea what running a military prison is like; he snidely offers to transfer Irwin to another prison if Winter requests it, but Winter hisses that he has no interest in that resolution. Yates discreetly steals a U.S. flag from the warden's office during one of his visits and reveals he is on Irwin's side; Winter orders all the prisoners to be outside in the yard in an attempt to prevent their plot, but this was part of their plan as well, and the riot commences. Using improvised weapons, the prisoners capture an armored vehicle and the prison helicopter, which Yates uses to kill Zamorro. The prisoners place a call to Wheeler's headquarters and inform him of the riot. Winter has little time to regain control before Wheeler will arrive to see the prison under siege, so orders the use of live ammunition against the prisoners. Winter knows from Yates that Irwin's ultimate goal is to raise the American flag upside down, a classic signal of distress. Irwin's men create havoc, but ultimately are confronted by overwhelming numbers of guards armed with live ammunition. The colonel orders the men to lay down, but they refuse. He orders them again, telling them that the sharpshooters that are in place above them will fire if they do not obey. Just before he gives the order, Irwin orders his fellow prisoners to lay down. The colonel then tells Irwin to give him back his flag, to which Irwin replies, "It's not your flag." Irwin then turns and begins walking toward the flagpole in order to raise the flag. The colonel, increasingly unsettled, tells Irwin, "You will not raise that flag upside down." But Irwin continues to walk, while the colonel continues to order him not to raise the flag upside down. Seeing that he is having no effect on Irwin, the colonel orders the shooters to fire on Irwin, but they do not. He orders them again and again, trying to stop Irwin from raising the flag upside down. But after Winter's men, including Captain Peretz, disobey his orders and refuse to kill Irwin, Winter fatally shoots Irwin in the back as he lifts the flag. As his life ebbs away, Irwin continues to raise the flag. Peretz places the colonel under arrest for the shooting of Irwin. The prisoners, now standing again, begin to salute the flag. To his astonishment, Winter now sees that Irwin has actually raised the flag in the correct manner, which means that the colonel had shot Irwin for no good reason. The flag flies above the prison's walls as General Wheeler arrives. Colonel Winter is led away in handcuffs. The inmates build a new wall as memorial to their fallen comrades. Aguilar and Irwin's names are among those carved onto the castle's wall. 

=====

The movie begins with Donald Foley retrieving curling stones from a lake near Long Bay, Ontario. Foley dies after retrieving the stones, and a codicil to his will demands that curling rink he formerly coached be re-assembled, and enter a bonspiel to win the Golden Broom by placing a stone containing his ashes on the button. The team's skip, Chris Cutter, had skipped town ten years ago over the shame of failing to call a burnt stone, abandoning his fiancée Julie Foley (Donald's daughter) at the altar, and throwing the team's stones into the lake. Chris returns to Long Bay, where he convinces the former members of his team, Neil Bucyk, James Lennox, and Eddie Strombeck, to enter the competition for the Golden Broom. While the rink practices for the Golden Broom tournament, Chris tries to make amends with Julie, which is complicated by his feelings for her younger sister Amy. Neil deals with his resentment towards his wife, and unhappiness at running a funeral home inherited from his father in law. Eddie deals with his low sperm count and dissatisfaction about being unable to father children. James is working as a minor drug dealer, and tries to raise money to pay off a supplier to whom he is indebted. After losing a match to an extremely elderly rink, the team realises they need a coach to be prepared for the bonspiel. Chris reconciles with his estranged father Gordon Cutter, so he will coach the team. Gordon trains the team for the upcoming bonspiel. In the first match of the bonspiel, the rink plays another rink, skipped by former Olympian Alexander Yount. Chris again fails to call a burnt stone, demoralising himself, the rest of his rink, and his father. Chris goes drinking at a bar, where Amy meets him and informs him she Julie have come to an understanding; Julie accepts that Chris and Amy love one another, and once Chris accepts it they can be together. Julie, meanwhile, will be blasted off into space. Chris goes to his mother's grave where he encounters his father; the two reconcile, and Gordon tells Chris to go be with Amy. Neil quits the rink, and is replaced by Gordon. However, in the second to last match, Gordon once again throws out his back and unable to curl. However, Chris and his rink manage to win the match. In the final match of the bonspiel, the rink once again meets Yount's rink. With Gordon injured, Chris is forced to curl with a rink of three. Down 6-0 early, Gordon laments that they "need a good lead man." At this time, Neil and his wife are at the country club. Joanne rushes to the club and convinces Neil to rejoin the rink. Chris and his rink stage a comeback, and are now within victory. On the critical final shot, one of the sweepers burns the stone, noticed only by Chris. In this instance, Chris calls the burn. Yount allows Chris to retake the shot, to which Chris changes up his shot. Chris throws the rock directly at the centre of the house, smashing it and the rock it collided with. A large piece of granite lands directly on the button, along with Coach Foley's ashes. Chris and his rink have not only won the Golden Broom bonspiel, but have also fulfilled Coach Finley's final wish. 

=====

The story begins only days after the conclusion of Taran Wanderer. With winter approaching, Taran and his companion Gurgi return from their wanderings to Caer Dallben after getting news from Kaw the crow that Princess Eilonwy has returned from the Isle of Mona. Indeed, they find her at home, along with her escort King Rhun of Mona and the former giant Glew, who had been magically restored to human size by a potion from Dallben. Before Taran can propose to Eilonwy, the bard-king Fflewddur Fflam and his mount Llyan arrive with a gravely injured Gwydion, Prince of Don. Servants of Arawn had assaulted them and seized the magical black sword Dyrnwyn. Fflewddur also states that Taran was involved in the ambush, baffling everyone. With Achren's help, the truth is determined: Arawn himself has come from Annuvin to the verge of Caer Dallben in the guise of Taran, in order to lure Gwydion into the ambush. Because Dyrnwyn may be pivotal as a threat to Arawn, Dallben consults the oracular pig Hen Wen to determine how it may be regained. During the reading, the ash rods used to communicate shatter and the two thirds of Hen Wen's answer are discouraging and vague. When Gwydion heals sufficiently, he sets out with Taran and others to meet with King Smoit. Gwydion insists that he alone should enter Annuvin to seek the sword, but Smoit's Cantrev Cadiffor is on the way. The small party divides, as Rhun and Eilonwy intend to visit the ships of Mona en route. When Gwydion, Taran, and others reach Caer Cadarn, they are imprisoned by Magg, the treacherous former Chief Steward of Mona, who has entered service with Arawn and taken over the fortress. When Eilonwy approaches with the other party, she detects something amiss and they cautiously send Fflewddur Fflam to the fortress as a bard. After entertaining the soldiers for a night, he returns with the bad news. Then the companions encounter Gwystyl of the Fair Folk outside the stronghold, en route home after closing the waypost near Annuvin, personally bearing final observations to King Eiddileg about preparations for war by Arawn's forces. With Gwystyl's assistance and store of magical smokes, fires, and concealments, the companions break in and free the prisoners. The plan goes awry, however; King Smoit and his men are finally able to regain control only by Rhun's intervention, which costs his life. Learning from Gwystyl of the activities in Annuvin, Gwydion turns from the quest for Dyrnwyn to planning for battle at Caer Dathyl. Gwystyl, Fflewddur, and Taran leave to gather support, respectively from the Fair Folk, the northern realms, and the Free Commots. Kaw, sent out by Taran to reconnoiter the enemy, is attacked by Gwythaints while spying near Annuvin, but manages to reach Medwyn, who asks all the creatures of air and land to oppose the forces of Arawn. Taran, Coll, Eilonwy, and Gurgi muster the Commots, who rally to their friendship with Taran, and sends them marching in groups to Caer Dathyl while the smiths and weavers rallied by Hevydd and Dwyvach work day and night to equip them. Soon after Taran and the last Commots reach Caer Dathyl, King Pryderi arrives from the western realms. In council he announces his new allegiance to Arawn, for the good of all, because "Arawn will do what the Sons of Don have failed to do: Make an end of endless wars among the cantrevs, and bring peace where there was none before." He is rejected utterly but permitted to return unharmed to his army, and at the next day the battle begins. Although the Sons of Don and allies initially have the best of it, the Cauldron-Born arrive en masse before evening, overwhelming the allies and razing Caer Dathyl to the ground. With High King Math killed, Gwydion is proclaimed the new High King. With the bulk of the Cauldron-Born deployed outside of Annuvin, Gwydion determines that the best chance is to attack while it is guarded by mortal men alone. He will lead the Sons of Don to waiting ships on the north coast and attack by sea, while Taran leads the Commots to delay the Cauldron-Born's return march, as their power wanes with time and distance from Annuvin. Taran and his army are able to hold the tired Cauldron-Born warriors beyond arm's length by brute force, and turn the march from a straight and easy route into the rugged hills, although Coll dies in battle. Thanks to a company of Fair Folk, and to the animals sent by Medwyn, they destroy most of the Huntsmen who accompany and lead the undead. At last the Cauldron-Born break free of the hills and return to the lowland route. Regaining strength as they near Annuvin, it would be futile for the exhausted allies to meet them head-on again, so inevitably they take the long, easy route to Arawn's stronghold. Taran and the remainder of his army finally reach Annuvin by a combination of the direct route, a mountain path of Doli's, and a secret pass over Mount Dragon shown to them by Achren. Taran sees that victory is nearly in Gwydion's hands, but also that the Cauldron-Born are about to reach Annuvin. In his alarm, Taran nearly falls off Mount Dragon, but is saved by the now-grown Gwythaint he had rescued so many years ago (The Book of Three). In a desperate attempt to fight off a group of Cauldron-Born who have discovered him on the mountain, he rolls a rock at them, and discovers Dyrnwyn in the hollow the stone occupied. Wielding Dyrnwyn, Taran slays the undead warrior who approaches to slay him, and at that instant all of the Cauldron-Born die as one. Taran's group enters the fray, and the battle continues through the halls of Annuvin. Taran is almost deceived by Arawn - who has taken the guise of Gwydion - into giving up the sword. After the chaotic defeat of Arawn's forces, the companions gather before the Great Hall. Achren identifies Arawn in the form of a nearby serpent preparing to striking Taran and grabs him. He strikes her fatally, but Taran kills him with Dyrnwyn. With the death of Arawn, the stronghold of Annuvin bursts in flame and falls in ruins, destroying all of the magical implements inside; only Gurgi manages to save several scrolls containing knowledge of farming, smithing, and other crafts. The sword Dyrnwyn begins to fade, losing its magic. The allies travel to Caer Dallben, where Gwydion tells them that in victory the Sons of Don, with all kinsmen and kinswomen, must return to the Summer Country. Indeed, all those who still have magic will depart, and the Fair Folk and Medwyn have closed their realms to outsiders. Dallben and Eilonwy must also go, and others who have served well, Taran among them, are given the chance to accompany them. Taran proposes to Eilonwy at last, and she accepts. The Sons of Don plan to leave the next day. However, Taran becomes uncomfortable about his decision overnight. The witches Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch appear before him and reveal that they too are departing, and leave him with an unfinished tapestry depicting his life. He realizes there is much work to be done to rebuild Prydain, and he has made many promises; so he determines to remain behind. Eilonwy is able to willingly give up her magical nature in order to remain with him, and the two are married. Dallben reveals that with this last quest, Taran has completed a path prophesied in the Book of Three whereby an orphan of "no station in life" would succeed the Sons of Don as High King. Dallben had traveled to seek such a one and try to hasten the day of Arawn's defeat; on this journey, he found a baby, hidden in the trees beside a battlefield and without any token of parentage, and took it in under the name Taran. Taran receives many gifts, including The Book of Three itself, although its powers, like all magic in Prydain, has also faded away with Arawn's demise, leaving it only as a mere chronicle of Taran's life. With Eilonwy by his side, Taran accepts his new responsibility and is hailed by his friends and battle companions as the new High King. 

=====

The game starts with a Ninja in training (simply named Ninja), who comes to rescue his Sensei (simply named Sensei) from the Ranx sent by Ninja's nemesis, Emperor O-Dor. Ninja saves Sensei by defeating the Ranx. Then, a creature comes to attack Ninja which he deals with easily. The creature then spits out a Rage Stone which Ninja touches and goes into a fit of rage and accidentally kills Sensei. Sensei comes back as a ghost and tells Ninja that there are more Rage Stones and with their power, he can defeat O-Dor. Sensei then sends Ninja to find the second Rage Stone in Robot Beach. Ninja then arrives at Robot Beach. Ninja arrives in Robot Beach and is told to rebuild Tekeyama, a giant robot that guarded Robot Beach before Kyza came. Ninja rebuilds Tekeyama and starts to fight Kyza in which he defeats him. Inside Kyza, a Rage Stone is found and Ninja retrieves it. Like before, he is unable to control the stone at first, and dashes around the area before heading for the next level. The guardian of Robot Beach and creator of Tekeyama, Yang, thanks Ninja by opening the gate to Bomb Bay, the location of the next Rage Stone. Ninja arrives at Bomb Bay and saves it from many of the dangers the Ranx have set up. Ninja then finds a submarine inside a giant bomb and fights the mechanical fish, Ventis for the next Rage Stone. Ninja then meets the guardian of Bomb Bay, Aria. If anybody saves Aria from something, she always rewards the hero with hugs and kisses, with Ninja being no exception. She then tries to hug and kiss him, while he struggles not to harm her with the rage stone's power. Ninja opens the gate and gets away from Aria, not before calling her a "fish girl" and walking off. The next area Ninja lands in is the Jungle Falls which is being haunted by the underworld demon, Psyamon. Ninja saves the jungle by defeating the Ranx. When Psyamon finds Ninja, Ninja is not ready to fight so he finds a battle suit which destroys the underworld demon. Ninja then meets Twikki, the guardian of the Jungle Falls (and a passive/cowardly one at that.) Ninja also locates O-Dor's Rage Stone which he uses, despite Twikki's warning to save him from an army of Ranx. Ninja then enters Mountain Gorge where he saves the Mountains from the new, more powerful Ranx. After saving the mountains, Ninja meets O-Dor's right-hand man, Malakai, who can control the elements. Ninja wins and takes a moon-shaped Rage Stone. After a confusing moment of Ninja climbing all over the large stone, trying to use it, a female ninja, Zarola, tells Ninja that the stone was a Teleport Stone, not a Rage Stone which will take him to O-Dor's secret moon base. She also tells him about the stone of life which can resurrect the dead or grant immortality to the living, offering Ninja a chance to resurrect Sensei or live forever. Then, Zarola sends Ninja off. Ninja arrives at the Moon Base and fights all sorts of Ranx until Ninja finds where O-Dor was hiding out. Ninja and O-Dor then have a battle across space until Ninja makes O-Dor blow up. Ninja then finds the stone of light and decides to use it on himself. Sensei feels disappointed by Ninja's selfishness and floats away. Ninja starts to feel bad and then remembers Sensei saying that "Actions speak louder than words." Ninja throws the shuriken shaped stone at Sensei, and giving Sensei his life back. With everything back to normal, Ninja and Sensei teleport back to Earth. As soon as they leave, O-Dor manages to resurrect himself. 

=====

Matty, who was introduced in Gathering Blue, now lives with Seer, who was originally named Christopher and is a blind man rescued by the people of the Village years earlier. Outside the safe boundaries of Village is the Forest, a unwelcoming realm that most of the Villagers fear because of its powerful harm. Despite the lack of dangerous beasts, Forest is animated. People who trade at a gathering, Trade Mart, change from being compassionate and generous to angry and impatient. The Villagers change temperament and decide to close their borders and stop permitting the displaced and the unwanted of other communities to enter. Seer, in the wake of the sudden change, decides to send Matty to travel through the Forest to retrieve his daughter, Kira, who lives in a town several days away. The gift is a special ability that Matty possesses but hardly understands, which makes him mad and results in a fury. It is a power of healing that causes wholeness from the inside out. Matty puts his hands to the ground and manages to restore the integrity of Forest and people alike at the expense of his own life from the thickening forest. Leader names Matty as "the Healer." At the end of the novel, Matty's soul drifts deep into the earth, which saves the villagers and Forest. The chaos turns to peace, as Matty's powers become a part of the perishing earth. 

=====



=====

Marimar is a poor young innocent girl who lives with her grandparents in a hut on the beach by the ocean at San Martin dela Costa. She falls in love with Sergio, the son of wealthy farmer Renato Santibáñez. Sergio agrees to marry Marimar despite the disapproval of his father and stepmother, Angélica, but along the way he falls deeply in love with her. Angélica despises Marimar because of her innocence and her lack of knowledge of the world of high society. She constantly embarrasses Marimar, often diminishing her worth as an individual. Sergio becomes angry and decides to go away and earn money so he can take Marimar away from his father's house and safe from Angélica's wrath. Angélica also forced her to pull a bracelet out of a mud puddle with her teeth, telling her it was from Sergio's mother. Later, Angelica tells the police that Marimar stole the same bracelet from her, and Marimar is sent to prison. Then Angélica sends one of her servants, Nicandro, to set fire on the humble hut belonging to Marimar's grandparents, which results in their deaths. In addition, she also forges Sergio's handwriting and writes a fake letter to Marimar stating that he wants nothing more to do with her and that he never loved her. All these, along with the impact of her grandparents’ deaths, changes Marimar and sets her on the road to revenge. After leaving prison, Marimar then moves from her hometown to Mexico City with Padre Porres and works to get back on track, with a new identity as "Bella Aldama". While working as a servant in the Aldama mansion, she then meets her biological father, Gustavo Aldama, who has been looking for her for many years, without either him or her knowing of their relationship. He and her aunt Esperanza, teach her how to read, write, to speak eloquently, and to dress elegantly. She finds out she is pregnant, and later gives birth to a daughter, Cruzita. After the new and improved Marimar is ready to face society, Gustavo decides to take her to the opera, where she bumps into Sergio, and Marimar's plan for revenge against him and the Santibañez family begins. Fueled by anger, Marimar (assuming the identity of Bella and denying to Sergio and other people that she is Marimar) seduces Sergio constantly and then rejects his advances to hurt her. However, fate lead them to a new destination, Valle Encantado, where little by little, Marimar (as Bella), found even more obstacles that separates her from happiness, as Natalia Montenegro, the daughter of Fernando Montenegro (who also wants and falls in love with Bella), becomes obsessed with Sergio and at the same time, plans to make Marimar miserable. Marimar then strips Renato and Angélica of their wealth. Marimar buys out the Santibáñez house and embarrasses Angélica the way she had embarrassed Marimar before. As Sergio divorces Marimar and gets ready to marry his childhood friend Inocencia del Castillo, Marimar plans on breaking them up. Secretly, Sergio is still in love with Marimar. Angélica then gets into a car accident and suffers severe burns. While on her deathbed, as her last wish, she wants Marimar burned alive in her house. Innocencia finds out that Sergio has been trying to visit Marimar at her house. The pregnant Innocencia falls and is taken to the hospital, where she has her baby and is subsequently diagnosed with a brain tumor. She then makes a deal with Marimar, that if she survives her operation, Marimar will leave her and Sergio alone, but if she doesn't, Marimar will have to marry Sergio. Marimar then decides to forget about Sergio by falling in love with another man, Engr. Adrian Rosales. Innocencia then has brain surgery and survives her operation. Ashamed of all she has done, she then allows Marimar to eventually marry Sergio, and Renato also asks Marimar for forgiveness. They finally marry and live happily ever after. 

=====

Joe Tyler (Matthew Perry), a process server, is a week late serving a Mafia kingpin known as Fat Charlie (Joe Viterelli) with a summons to appear as a witness in court. Joe's abrasive boss Ray (Cedric the Entertainer) ridicules him while complimenting Joe's rival, Tony (Vincent Pastore), for serving multiple summonses in record time. Willing to give Joe one last shot, Ray gives him an assignment to serve British socialite Sara Moore (Elizabeth Hurley) with divorce papers from her husband, Gordon (Bruce Campbell), who is at his ranch in Texas with his mistress, Kate (Amy Adams), while Sara is vacationing in upstate New York. While Joe is attempting to serve Sara, Tony tips her off, thus revealing that Joe has been failing lately because Tony is sabotaging his efforts. Eventually Joe does serve her, but is mugged soon thereafter. Joe and Sara are forced to take the same bus; while they are riding together, Joe informs her that, under Texas law, she stands to gain nothing from the divorce. When she learns that "half of everything" would apply if the papers had been served under New York law, Sara offers Joe a million dollars to serve her husband and rip up her papers. Despite knowing that he might lose his job, Joe agrees and the two set off together to serve Gordon. When Ray hears of their plan, he informs Gordon and sends Tony off to re-serve Sara. Gordon hires a bodyguard (Terry Crews) to protect himself, and Joe, expecting Tony to tail him, leaves a set of bogus clues that lead Tony to Miami, Florida, Bangor, Maine, and then Amarillo, Texas, where Tony is shot in the back as he attempts to get on the grounds of the wrong ranch to try to serve the papers. Sara and Joe trail Gordon to his ranch, but Gordon evades them. At the ranch, Sara takes some money and Gordon's passport so that he can not leave the country. Sara and Joe stay overnight at a hotel, and Joe tells Sara of his dream of owning a vineyard. While Sara is bathing, Joe goes to the bar, and Gordon's mistress appears to suggest a new deal to Joe; for one million dollars from the divorce settlement, she will reveal Gordon's location. Joe agrees, but the entire deal is a setup to get Tony into the hotel room to serve Sara, which he does. Furious, Sara kicks Joe out. While Joe contemplates his lost fortune and budding affection for Sara, he notices Tony's watch in the picture Tony took of him serving Sara, and calls Ray to inform him that Tony forgot to set his watch to Central Time Zone, so that the papers do not take effect until 7:04 pm Central Time. With mere minutes until they both lose a fortune, Joe and Sara trail Gordon to a monster truck rally. They evade both Gordon's bodyguard and Tony, and with seconds to spare, Sara knocks Gordon out by dropping a six-pack of beer on his head. Joe serves him under New York law and Gordon takes the papers. Tony and the bodyguard are carried out of the stadium on stretchers and then attempt to fight one another. The final scene shows Joe and Sara at Joe's vineyard, where they taste-test a bottle of Joe's first vintage before going inside to have sex. 

=====

The story is set primarily on a train bound inland from Tibet. Sha Gen ("Dumbo" in the U.S. version, played by Wang Baoqiang), a naïve village boy working as construction worker in Tibet, was returning home to get married. Refusing to believe that thieves exist in the world, Sha Gen insists on carrying his five years of savings worth ¥60,000 ($8,400 USDElley, Derek. "A World Without Thieves." Variety. Wednesday 30 March 2005. Retrieved on 2 November 2011.) with him rather than use remittance. Sha Gen also brazenly shouts his earnings in a crowded street. As such, he has attracted the attention of Wang Bo (Andy Lau) and Wang Li (Rene Liu), who are lovers as well as highly skilled professional thieves. Wang Bo wants to steal the money as a last hit to end their career, but Wang Li, pregnant with their child and moved by Sha Gen's innocence, decides to protect the boy. The situation is further complicated when a small gang of thieves led by Hu Li (homophone of fox (狐狸 Húli) in Chinese), also known as Uncle Li (Ge You), boards the train. Uncle Li instructs his followers, among them Xiao Ye (Li Bingbing) and Four-Eyes (Gordon Lam), to refrain from doing a job on the train. Tempted by the huge amount of cash, however, some members disobey and strike, only to be robbed by Wang Bo moments later. This exposes Wang's skills to Uncle Li, who becomes highly interested in recruiting him. When Wang declines, the contest between the Wangs and Uncle Li's gang quickly escalates, with Sha Gen still completely unaware of the danger surrounding him. While the two sides tussle, however, a plainclothes police detective (Zhang Hanyu) has been silently watching and awaiting his chance. As the police force eventually closes in, Uncle Li attempts to make off with Sha Gen's money but is confronted by Wang Bo, who has finally promised to lend his help to Wang Li to protect Sha Gen's innocence. The two engage in a violent hand-to-hand combat. Although Wang succeeds in retrieving the money and giving it back, he is seriously injured in the fray, and subsequently dies. Uncle Li and his gang are all apprehended as the train pulls into station, but the police officer lets Wang Li go on compassionate grounds. Wang Li returns to Tibet sometime later, and prays to the heavens in a show of penance. 

=====

First published in Brazil in 1949, O Homem que Calculava is a series of tales in the style of the Arabian Nights, but revolving around mathematical puzzles and curiosities. The book is ostensibly a translation by Brazilian scholar Breno de Alencar Bianco of an original manuscript by Malba Tahan, a thirteenth-century Persian scholar of the Islamic Empire – both equally fictitious. The first two chapters tell how Hanak Tade Maia was traveling from Samarra to Baghdad when he met Beremiz Samir, a young lad from Khoy with amazing mathematical abilities. The traveler then invited Beremiz to come with him to Baghdad, where a man with his abilities will certainly find profitable employment. The rest of the book tells of various incidents that befell the two men along the road and in Baghdad. In all those events, Beremiz Samir uses his abilities with calculation like a magic wand to amaze and entertain people, settle disputes, and find wise and just solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. In the first incident along their trip (chapter III), Beremiz settles a heated inheritance dispute between three brothers. Their father had left them 35 camels, of which 1/2 (17.5 camels) should go to his eldest son, 1/3 (11.666... camels) to the middle one, and 1/9 (3.888... camels) to the youngest. To solve the brothers dilemma, Beremiz convinces Hanak to donate his only camel to the dead man's estate. Then, with 36 camels, Beremiz gives 18, 12, and 4 animals to the three heirs, making all of them profit with the new share. Of the remaining two camels, one is returned to Hanak, and the other is claimed by Beremiz as his reward. The translator's notes observe that a variant of this problem, with 17 camels to be divided in the same proportions, is found in hundreds of recreational mathematics books, such as those of E. Fourrey (1949) and G. Boucheny (1939). However, the 17-camel version leaves only one camel at the end, with no net profit for the estate's executor. At the end of the book, Beremiz uses his abilities to win the hand of his student and secret love Telassim, the daughter of one of the Caliph's advisers. (The caliph mentioned is Al-Musta'sim, the only real character who appears fictitiously; the time period ends with the Abbasid dynasty's collapse.) In the last chapter we learn that Hanak Tade Maia and Beremiz eventually moved to Constantinople following the Siege of Baghdad (Telassim's father died in the fighting), where Beremiz had three sons and Hanak visits him often. 

=====

Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is a successful businessman with mechanical aptitude living in the suburbs of Los Angeles whose wife Barbara (Ann-Margret) is running for city council. Harry is confronted by three hooded blackmailers who demand $105,000 per year for a videotape of him and the mistress, Cini (Kelly Preston), with whom he has been having an affair. Because of his wife's political aspirations he cannot go to the police. Harry's stubborn inclination is to not surrender to the threats, and when his lawyer advises him that paying the blackmailers won't ensure that they go away, he refuses to pay. The three criminals intensify the pressure on Harry by murdering Cini, capturing the killing on videotape, and framing Harry for the murder. They demand $105,000 a year from Harry for the rest of his life to keep hidden the evidence they have on him. Using deduction and trickery, Harry tracks down the identity of the blackmailers. He shows his financial records to their leader, Alan Raimy (John Glover), who Harry has realized has a background in accounting. The ledgers show that Harry cannot afford $105,000. Raimy agrees to accept Harry's offer of $52,000 instead, at least as a first payment. Harry confesses everything to Barbara, who is furious at him and insists he move out of their bedroom. Harry succeeds in turning the blackmailers against one another, though putting Barbara's life in danger in the process. A stripper, Doreen (Vanity), who inadvertently helped Harry learn who the blackmailers are, is assaulted by Raimy's accomplice, Bobby Shy (Clarence Williams III). Bobby then kills their third partner, Leo (Robert Trebor), believing he has betrayed the gang. Raimy kills both Bobby and Doreen, then kidnaps Barbara and sedates her with a narcotic, agreeing to ransom her for the agreed upon $52,000. Harry and Raimy make the exchange. Raimy had previously expressed interest in Harry’s sports car, so Harry offers it to him to use as a getaway vehicle. Raimy accepts it, but when he turns the key to start the motor the doors lock shut, trapping him inside the car, which, seconds later, explodes in a ball of fire. 

=====

Following a series of brutal murder committed by what appears to be an animal, Sheriff Vernon Bell (Philip Carey) asks local adventure writer and former hunter John Weatherby (Peter Graves) to investigate. Weatherby agrees, and finds that the footprints left at the murder site appear to be that of a wolf, but that changed into a bipedal animal while leaving, and the animal has left no scent. Weatherby asks his friend, reclusive big game hunter Byron Douglas (Clint Walker) for help, but he declines, stating that he feels the atmosphere of fear the killings create has made the townsfolk “alive” for the first time. Byron and Weatherby had previously gone on a hunt where they battled a vicious wolf that had bitten Byron. Weatherby’s girlfriend Sandy (Jo Ann Pflug) is attacked in her home by the animal. She survives, but begins to believe the murders were committed by a werewolf, a belief that spreads to the rest of the townsfolk. Sandy also believes that Byron could be the killer, as does Sheriff Bell, who posts a police officer to stakeout Byron’s house. The officer is mauled to death, and his body is found in a clearing far away from the house. After the town is put into a state of national emergency, Weatherby demands Byron help once more, and he reluctantly agrees. The two hunt for the animal in the woods, splitting up. Byron is seemingly killed by the animal, which John tracks to Byron’s house. John is held at gunpoint by Byron, who had faked his own death by killing his assistant Grant (Don Megowan). Byron reveals that he was the killer, having faked the tracks with pieces of the animals he’s killed over the years and covered his scent, and used an attack dog to kill the victims. Byron wants to hunt Weatherby and help him regain his killer instincts, and sends him out into the woods with a five minute head start to find ammo for his rifle. Weatherby succeeds, but is attacked by the dog, which he shoots. Byron then attacks him, only for Weatherby to reveal he had hidden a pistol, having known Byron was the killer and baited him into revealing himself. Byron walks away, saying Weatherby is no longer brave enough to shoot him, only for John to shoot him. Enraged, Byron rushes after him, only to be shot again and killed. John stands over his friend’s body, contemplating what he has done, and then walks off into the night. 

=====

During his childhood, Tim Jensen witnesses his father being taken by the Boogeyman, an evil creature which lives in all closets worldwide. Since then, he has taken precautions to ensure that the Boogeyman cannot get to him, such as sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and removing all closets from his home, and keeping all his clothes in a dresser drawer. After a Thanksgiving trip with his girlfriend Jessica to her parents' house, Tim has a premonition in which his mother tells him to return to the family home. Soon after, he receives a call from his uncle informing him that his mother has died. Upon returning to the psychiatric ward, where he grew up after his father died, he discovers that one of the patients, a young girl, is being terrorized by something hiding in the ceiling of her room. Upon a suggestion by his psychiatrist that returning to his family home to spend the night in that house would be a good idea, Tim returns to his old Victorian style house in the open country, where he relives memories of his mother telling his father that the Boogeyman does not exist and therefore cannot possibly harm Tim. Tim is briefly attacked by the Boogeyman when he enters the downstairs closet. Tim meets a young girl in his woodshed, named Franny, who wants to know if it's true that the Boogeyman murdered Tim's father. Searching the woodshed he discovers a file of Missing Person lists and documents left by Franny, and upon flicking through them, he discovers a disturbing collection of missing children who were all taken by the Boogeyman. Tim panics and attempts to leave, but Jessica abruptly shows up and takes Tim out of the house for a night to a quiet motel, where she is murdered by the Boogeyman, dragging her into the bath. Tim returns from getting ice and preparing drinks and enters the bathroom, where he finds that Jessica is missing. He realizes what has occurred, and stumbles blindly into a closet, and then walks out into his family home, just as Kate, his childhood friend, has returned to his home and, upon hearing noises from the closets, was about to open the door herself. Tim drags Kate back to the hotel, where they find the empty bath; this time with blood on the side. Kate begins thinking that Tim might've harmed Jessica; but Tim angrily denies it. Frustrated at Tim's refusal to tell her what is really wrong with him, Kate drives them back to her house where Tim spots something in the window. Kate claims that the person Tim saw was in fact her deaf father. She then calls Tim's Uncle Mike to have him check on Tim. But he is captured and taken away by the Boogeyman. Tim returns to his house and meets Franny once more, who leads him to a house full of proclamations describing the Boogeyman. There is a chair in the middle of the room facing a closet. Tim remembers this house as being the home of a doctor whom everyone thought was insane. Franny then reveals herself to be the doctor's daughter and one of the kids the Boogeyman took, telling Tim he'd best go to the place where it all started. The Boogeyman pulls Tim through various portals in time through the closet, eventually depositing him in his childhood room. Realizing its true weakness, Tim smashes various toys the Boogeyman uses to give itself form, eventually defeating it, vanishing into the void. With the Boogeyman gone, Tim hopes that his and Kate's lives will be safer. Morning dawns and Tim already feels better, thinking he's finally safe. However, a post-credits scene reveals a young girl being tormented by the monster, revealing that the Boogeyman has resurfaced out of the closet. 

=====

While on a boat trip with his father, Gary Gulliver and his dog Tagg end up shipwrecked on an island. On this island is the kingdom of Lilliput,http://www.tv.com/shows/the- adventures-of-gulliver/ where its inhabitants have a height of only a few centimeters. Gary and Tagg are caught by the Lilliputians while they are recovering from the shipwreck, but afterwards they become great friends. With the help of the Lilliputians, Gary continues searching for his missing father. (A subplot in the series involves a map that Gary's father left to him after secretly putting it inside Tagg's collar before the shipwreck). The villain of the series is the evil Captain Leech who, in the adventures, is always attempting to steal the map from Gary. 

=====

Kat Ellis (Debra Messing) is a single New Yorker who returns to her parents' house in London to be the maid of honor at her younger half sister Amy's (Amy Adams) wedding. The best man is none other than her former fiancé, who unexpectedly dumped her two years ago. Anxious about confronting him and eager to impress him, she hires suave escort Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney) to pose as her boyfriend. Kat intends to make her former flame, Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield), jealous, but her plan backfires when Nick convinces everyone, including her, that they are madly in love. Kat then feels herself, too, falling for Nick as he slowly falls for her. The night before the wedding, Kat discovers Amy slept with Jeffrey when they were still together, and that Jeffrey dumped Kat because he believed he was in love with Amy. Nick had discovered this fact a day earlier, and when Kat finds that out, she feels betrayed from all sides, and puts Nick off. He decides to return to America, and leaves Kat the money she had paid him. On the wedding day, seeing Kat distressed, her step-father (Peter Egan) asks Kat if Nick 'is the guy for you', and Kat realizes he is, so she sets off to find him. Meanwhile, just before the wedding, Amy confesses her betrayal to her fiancé, Ed (Jack Davenport), but professes her love for him. Ed, upset, chases Jeffrey out of the church and down the road. Jeffrey in distress of the chase, said he gave up on Amy and believes he's done nothing wrong. To which Ed, calls him a "back-stabbing weasel", though Jeffrey believes he's still done nothing wrong because he slept with Amy before they dated. Ed shouts out that he was engaged to Kat, proving he was still in the wrong for what he did to Kat. Nick, driving away, picks up Ed as Jeffrey disappears into the woods. Nick and Ed talk about love, and Ed decides he loves Amy more than he is angry. To make it more clear that he should go back, Nick tells Ed if he went back the couple would end up having great makeup sex. To which, Nick helps urge him more to return to the church, so they end up getting married, with Nick as 'new' best man. Just before the ceremony, Nick tells Kat he realized he'd "... rather fight with you than make love with anyone else", and they kiss passionately. Kat and Nick begin a real relationship together. Amy and Kat now reconcile and Kat lets go of her anger and forgives Amy since she confessed the truth to Ed. TJ (Sarah Parish), Kat's cousin also apparently enjoys a moment with Woody (Jolyon James) after the wedding. Jeffrey learns absolutely nothing. At the end he is seen trying to get the attentions of a female neighbor. Amy gets away with everything. 

=====

Victor Joseph (Adam Beach) and Thomas Builds-the-Fire (Evan Adams) live on the Coeur D'Alene Indian Reservation in Plummer, Idaho. Thomas is an eccentric storyteller and Victor is an angry young man who enjoys playing basketball. Victor and Thomas are brought together through Victor's father, Arnold (Gary Farmer). Arnold rescued Thomas as an infant from a house fire that killed his parents. Because of this, Thomas considers him a hero. On the other hand, Victor, who endures Arnold's alcoholism, domestic violence, and eventual child abandonment, regards his father with both deep love and bitter resentment. Thomas and Victor grow up together as neighbors and acquaintances, fighting with each other and simultaneously forming a close, albeit uneasy, friendship. When Arnold dies in Phoenix, Arizona, where he has stayed after leaving Victor and his mother Arlene (Tantoo Cardinal), Victor and Thomas go on an adventure to retrieve his ashes. The trip is the means for Victor and Thomas to explore their identities. Neither of them loses sight of his identity as an "Indian", but their perspectives differ. Victor is more stoic and Thomas is more traditional (and romantic to the point of watching the feature film Dances with Wolves countless times). Their dichotomy is portrayed all through the film; it results in Victor being irritated with Thomas, and Thomas being fascinated with Victor. Once they reach Phoenix, Victor has to confront his conflicted feelings about his father, as well as his own identity. He has to grapple with a new account of Thomas's parents' death, as told by his father's friend, Suzy Song (Irene Bedard). She says that a drunken Arnold set off fireworks, accidentally starting the fire that cost Thomas his parents. The road trip by the young men leads to Thomas reconciling with the memory of his adoptive father Arnold, as he understands more of his path to alcoholism and related abuse and abandonment. Victor also gains a better understanding of Thomas and his reverence for Arnold. 

=====

As described in the film magazine Exhibitors Herald, little Marie Farrell (Axzelle), through the carelessness of her nurse, is lost and believed drowned. She has wandered upon the ship of the smuggler Captain Flagg (Brandt), who finds her and brings her up as his own. Her parents adopt a boy to help them forget their grief. The girl grows up with no memory of her former life. The adopted boy moves in the smart set in Mayport, and his parents try to make a match between him and a society girl. Marie (Darmond) is brought to her adopted father's sister, as the old captain believes she should have the care of a loving woman. She meets young Richard Farrell (Welch) and the two come to love each other. The Farrells do everything they can to break up the couple, but with the help of the captain a marriage is accomplished. There is a stormy meeting between the bridal pair and the parents, during which the captain sees a portrait of Marie as a baby and, realizing the truth, tells the story of her life. The family is reunited and Mary and Richard spend their honeymoon on the captain's ship. 

=====

The film chronicles the tragic fall of a cursed Wall Street second banana, Rick O'Lette. 

=====

Tripper Harrison is the head counsellor of a group of new counsellors-in-training (CITs) at Camp North Star, a cut-rate summer camp located in Ontario. Camp director Morty Melnick (called Mickey by everyone, a play on Mortimer Mouse) falls victim to Tripper-led practical jokes, mainly by being taken from his cabin in the middle of the night and waking up in unusual places. Rudy Gerner, a lonely boy who is sent to summer camp by his workaholic father, decides to run away from camp. Noticing Rudy is shy and having difficulty fitting in, Tripper tracks Rudy to a nearby bus station and takes him under his wing. Each morning they go jogging and rapidly bond as friends. Tripper helps Rudy gain confidence while Rudy encourages the reluctant Tripper to start a romance with Roxanne, the girl's head counsellor. Love is also in the air for many of the CITs; Candace "kidnaps" Crockett in a speedboat and confesses her feelings for him. Wheels, who had broken up with A.L. the year before, successfully rekindles their relationship during a dance. The nerdy Spaz develops a crush on Jackie. A subplot deals with North Star's rivalry with Camp Mohawk, a wealthy summer camp located across the lake. During a basketball game, North Star is being beaten by Mohawk when they attempt their own perverse form of victory. This sets the stage for the yearly Olympiad held between the camps in which Mohawk carries a 12–0 record. During the first day of competition, Mohawk dominates North Star, cheating in many cases to win. Crockett fails to clear the high jump bar, Hardware gets pummelled in boxing, and Jackie suffers a broken leg in field hockey, thanks to the dirty work of two Mohawk girls. The score at the end of Day One is: Mohawk 170, North Star 63. That evening at the North Star Lodge, Tripper gives a rousing speech, telling the demoralized campers that it doesn't matter whether they win or lose. In unison, Camp North Star begins to chant, "It just doesn't matter!" Day Two of the Olympiad belongs to newly inspired North Star as they win every event. Wheels outwrestles his opponent, Spaz defeats Rhino in a stacking contest with inspiration from Jackie and a thwarted Mohawk cheating attempt, and, after 12 years of North Star defeats, Fink finally beats "The Stomach" in the hot dog eating contest. North Star now trails by only 10 points with one event left, a four-mile cross country run for 20 points. Tripper steps forward and selects a surprised Rudy to compete against Horse, Mohawk's star runner. The many mornings Rudy spent jogging and training with Tripper pay off as he wins the race, giving North Star its first Olympiad victory by a score of 230–220. Later that evening, Morty, Tripper, Roxanne, and the CITs sing around a campfire and say their final goodbyes as the camp prepares to close at the end of summer. Rudy has already decided to return to camp next year and Roxanne agrees to live with Tripper. The two ride off on Tripper's motorcycle, leading the buses out of camp and leaving Morty behind, in bed, on a raft in the middle of the lake. 

=====

Veronika is a young woman from Ljubljana, Slovenia, who appears to have a perfect life, but nevertheless decides to commit suicide by overdosing with sleeping pills. While she waits to die, she cancels the suicide letter she starts to her parents while suddenly provoked by a magazine article. The magazine article wittily asks "Where is Slovenia?", so she writes a letter to the press justifying her suicide, the idea is to make the press believe that she has killed herself because people don't even know where Slovenia is. Her plan fails and she wakes up from the coma in Villette, a mental hospital in Slovenia, where she is told she has only a few days to live due to heart condition caused by the overdose. Her presence there affects all of the mental hospital's patients, especially Zedka, who has clinical depression; Mari, who has panic attacks; and Eduard, who has schizophrenia, and with whom Veronika falls in love. During her internment in Villette she realizes that she has nothing to lose and can, therefore, do what she wants, say what she wants and be who she wants without having to worry about what others think of her; as a mental patient, she is unlikely to be criticized. Because of this new-found freedom, Veronika experiences all the things she never allowed herself to experience, including hatred and love. In the meantime, Villette's head psychiatrist, Dr. Igor, attempts a fascinating but provocative experiment: can you "shock" someone into wanting to live by convincing her that death is imminent? Like a doctor applying defibrillator paddles to a heart attack victim, Dr. Igor's "prognosis" jump-starts Veronika's new appreciation of the world around her. 

=====

Each game region contains from several dozens to over a hundred "Regional" quests which can be standalone missions or part of complete storyline with a clear culminating point, which often runs parallel to the Epic Story. The main storyline (also known as the "Epic Quest Line") is presented as a series of "Books", which consist of series of quests called "Chapters". Initially eight Books were available at the game's release, with a new book added with each content update. After the game's transion to free-to-play new Books stopped being strictly tied to updates, with some major updates containing no new Books while others adding several Books at once instead. 

=====

Using fossilized DNA, a scientist clones a prehistoric sabretooth cat. However, one night as a janitor prepares to clean the sabretooth's residential quarters, he is subsequently killed after recklessly locking himself in the cage with it. As the fearsome creature is being transported, it breaks free and kills the driver, before beginning to stalk human prey. Taking its spree into the forested mountains in the Pacific Northwest, the beast kills a vacationing couple, before later continuing to stalk a group of trainee guides learning the area of seniors. Catherine Viciy (Vanessa Angel), the scientist who created it, and her colleague Anthony Bricklin (John Rhys-Davies), call in Robert Thatcher (David Keith), a big game hunter and tracker, to find the animal, tricking him into believing it is an African lion, and will offer to pay him $50,000. They go into the mountains to find the cat and come across the cabin where the vacationers were killed. At this point, Thatcher states that "your kitty has an attitude problem." Catherine throws away Thatcher's satellite phone, knowing he had planned to notify the police and Animal Control. As they continue through the woods, the sabretooth kills Kara, a zoologist working for Catherine, and Thatcher declares he will kill the sabretooth no matter what. The next day, Thatcher starts seeing signs of the trainees and sabretooth's tracks corresponding. One night, he hears a camper scream and leaves camp to investigate. He finds the camper's remains and later relates his fate to Casey, the leader of the group, who was searching for him. After they return to the group's camp, Trent, another senior guide, comes in screaming about the death of another trainee and about seeing a sabretooth, to much shock and disbelief. Instructing Casey and the others to a nearby mine to wait for him, Thatcher goes after it, but before he can kill it, Catherine shoots at it with a tranquilizer gun and misses, scaring it off. Thatcher is fired for trying to kill it instead of catching it, because of all the scientific progress the creature was going to bring, but the sabretooth reappears and slowly kills Anthony, allowing Thatcher and Catherine time to escape. Though Catherine steals his revolver, Thatcher recovers his rifle and they head for the mine, where only Casey and Trent remain alive, and where the sabretooth has Trent trapped. Thatcher hands Catherine his rifle and tells her to shoot the sabretooth should it get past him, then he heads to an opening at the top of the mine. He and Casey hit the sabretooth with a tranquilizer and Trent escapes. After they are all outside, Thatcher sends them on and tries to kill the sabretooth, but finds that Catherine has unloaded his rifle. As he runs away, he falls and catches his foot in a bear trap. Casey and Trent find him and, after they make spears from saplings, they make it back to a lake where they find Catherine. After striking Catherine down for nearly getting him killed, Thatcher prepares to go after the sabretooth once more, but Catherine draws his revolver on him, telling him that she does not want to see her creation destroyed. Before she can kill him, Trent kicks the gun out of her hand, but is shot. The revolver slides down the cliff and the sabretooth reappears. Catherine tries to warn the beast off, but is killed by her own creation. Thatcher tricks the sabretooth into jumping on his spear and throws it down a ledge, killing it. Later Thatcher, Casey, and Trent head back to the summer camp where Casey works. 

=====



=====

In early 1940s, Apurba Kumar Roy (Apu) (Soumitra Chatterjee) is an unemployed graduate (completed study up to the intermediate science) living in a rented room at Tala, Calcutta. Despite his teacher's advice to go for higher studies, he is unable to do so because he cannot afford it. He tries to find a job, while barely getting by providing private tutoring. His main passion is writing a novel, partially based on his own life, hoping to get it published some day. One day, he meets his old friend Pulu, who coaxes him to join him on a trip to his village in Khulna to attend the marriage of a cousin named Aparna (Sharmila Tagore). On the day of the marriage, it is revealed that the bridegroom has a serious mental disorder. The bride's mother cancels the marriage, despite the father's protests. He and the other villagers believe, according to prevalent Hindu tradition, that the young bride must be wedded off during the previously appointed auspicious hour, otherwise, she will have to remain unmarried all her life. Apu, after initially refusing when requested by a few villagers, ultimately decides to take Pulu's advice and come to the rescue of the bride by agreeing to marry her. He returns with Aparna to his apartment in Calcutta after the wedding. He takes up a clerical job, and a loving relationship begins to bloom between them. Yet, the young couple's blissful days are cut short when Aparna dies while giving birth to their son, Kajal. Apu is overcome with grief and holds the child responsible for his wife's death. He shuns his worldly responsibilities and becomes a recluse – travelling to different corners of India, while the child is left with his maternal grandparents. Meanwhile, Apu throws away his manuscript for the novel he had been writing over the years. A few years later, Pulu finds Kajal growing wild and uncared for. He then seeks out Apu, who is working at a mining quarry and advises Apu one last time to take up his fatherly responsibility. At last, Apu decides to come back to reality and reunite with his son. When he reaches his in-laws' place, Kajal, having seen him for the first time in his life, at first does not accept him as a father. Eventually, he accepts Apu as a friend and they return to Calcutta together to start life afresh. 

=====

Dracula reawakens in 1852, after nearly a hundred years of enforced slumber, as a result of humankind's descent into vice and wickedness. Two young heroes sense his return: Carrie Fernandez, a girl gifted with magic powers, and Reinhardt Schneider, heir to the ancient Belmont clan of vampire hunters. The two set out to storm the Count's castle in the Transylvanian province of Wallachia and vanquish him. As they penetrate the castle walls, an aristocratic vampire appears to warn Carrie and Reinhardt that "all who oppose the Dark Lord will die". The two then come upon a decrepit villa, where they meet the elderly vampire hunter Charles Vincent, beautiful yet unwilling vampire Rosa, demonic salesman Renon and young boy Malus. Beneath the estate's maze garden lies a subterranean path to the castle's center, where Dracula's servants (Actrise and Death) attempt to waylay the heroes by pitting them in battle against their loved ones (the Fernandez warrior and Rosa). Carrie kills her vampirized kin while Reinhardt beats Rosa in combat. The heroes then climb several of the castle's towers before confronting Actrise and Death atop the Room of Clocks. With their defeat, the heroes climb the Clock Tower to the Castle Keep. If the hero took sixteen or more "in-game" days to reach the second chamber on the stairs to the Castle Keep, Vincent will have arrived before them, been defeated by the aristocratic vampire assumed to be Dracula and turned into a vampire (thus triggering the bad ending). The hero will then have to battle Vincent. Without Vincent's intercession, the hero will not discover that Malus was indeed Dracula reincarnate – not simply possessed by him – and receive one of the bad endings in which the hero rescues the boy. If the player took fifteen or fewer days to reach the second chamber on the stairs to the Castle Keep, they will arrive before Charles Vincent (thus triggering the good ending). After fighting the vampire disguised as Dracula they will encounter Malus, who transforms into an adult and defeat him atop the Clock Tower. After his defeat, Malus will regain the form of a child. Attempting to dupe the hero, he will pretend to have no recollection of the battle, but Vincent will arrive and douse the boy with holy water. Vincent explains that Malus was not possessed, but was in fact Dracula reincarnate. Malus then transports the hero to an alternate realm to battle his true form, a centipedal dragon. After Dracula's defeat the player will receive one of the good endings: in Carrie's ending, she places flowers on her stepmother's grave. In Reinhardt's ending, Rosa, who sacrificed herself for him atop the Room of Clocks, is revived and her humanity restored. 

=====

The story begins in an unspecified year in the Middle Ages in Transylvania, during the incarnation of the original Count Dracula. Sonia Belmont, the first vampire hunter of her clan, develops mystical powers in her 17th year, and ventures out to challenge Dracula, meeting Alucard who seeks revenge against his father. After Dracula's defeat, he swears to Sonia that as long as there is evil in the world, he will be resurrected, and in response she swears her family will always defeat him. The game was designed as the first game in the series timeline, but later declared non-canon after the release of Lament of Innocence. 

=====

The setting is Central Asia during the Russian civil war. In the post-revolutionary twenties, when the power in European Russia was (officially) "fully in the hands of the workers and peasants", but the fight against the Basmachi rebels was in full swing. When a Red Army detachment captures Sultan Nazar (Anatoly Solonitsyn), the brains behind the Bazmachi contingent, a decision is made to escort urgently the prisoner to the Bukhara province. The difficult mission is entrusted to a grizzled mountain trapper and conscientious revolutionary Mirzo. His expertise is essential to traverse the precarious paths and steep mountain ridges along the way, impossible terrain for the inexperienced. A group consisting of Mirzo (Alexander Kaidanovsky), his brother Kova, the Sultan, his daughter Zaranghis (D. Alimova) and slave Saifulla set off on this journey, pursued doggedly along the way by Fottabek (Shavkat Abdusalyamov), the ruthless new head of the Basmachis. They are forced to fight on the mountain ridges as well as negotiate the natural dangers and harsh elements. 

=====

The White Guard Army led by General Anton Denikin are laying siege to a southern city in order to prevent a rebellion. They are also blocking the railway, but Chekist Zavragin is in a hurry to travel south. In a flash of inspiration, he decides to use tachankas or machine gun carts to reach his destination, and attracts an unusual group of equally desperate fellow travellers. The Burning Miles is influenced by railroad Western films like John Ford's classic Stagecoach, because of the diverse set of characters thrown together in desperate circumstances. Zavragin's companions on his journey include the doctor Shelako, the nurse Katya and a mysterious white guard officer Beklemishev, disguised as a veterinary surgeon. This formula gives the film an extra psychological dimension as the characters' progress towards their destination echoes the resolution of their problems and transitions in relationships. 

=====

In 1759, Langdon Towne (Robert Young), son of a cordage (rope)- maker and ship rigger, returns to Portsmouth, New Hampshire after his expulsion from Harvard University. Though disappointed, his family greets him with love, as does Elizabeth Browne (Ruth Hussey). Elizabeth's father (Louis Hector), a noted clergyman, is less welcoming, and denigrates Langdon's aspirations to become a painter. At the local tavern with friend Sam Livermore (Lester Matthews), Langdon disparages Wiseman Clagett (Montagu Love), the king's attorney, and the Indian agent Sir William Johnson, unaware that Clagett is in the next room with another official. Facing arrest, Langdon fights the two men with the help of "Hunk" Marriner (Walter Brennan), a local woodsman, and both escape into the woods. Fleeing westward, Langdon and Marriner stop in a backwoods tavern, where they help a man in a green uniform. After a night of drinking "Flip" - similar to hot buttered rum - the two men wake up at Fort Crown Point, where they learn the man they met is Major Robert Rogers (Spencer Tracy), commander of Rogers' Rangers. In need of Langdon's map-making skills, Rogers recruits the two men for his latest expedition to destroy the hostile Abenakis tribe and their town of St. Francis far to the north, several miles north of New Hampshire's northernmost border. Rogers' force rows north in whale boats on Lake Champlain by night, evading French patrols, but several soldiers are injured in a confrontation with Mohawk scouts. Rogers sends not only the wounded back to Crown Point, but also the disloyal Mohawks provided by Sir William Johnson (Frederick Worlock) and a number of men who disobeyed orders. Concealing their boats, the depleted force marches through swampland to conceal their movements. Informed by Stockbridge Indian scouts that the French have captured their boats and extra supplies, Rogers revises his plan and sends an injured officer back to Fort Crown Point requesting the British send supplies to old Fort Wentworth, to be met by the returning rangers. Making a human chain to cross a river, the rangers reach St. Francis. Their attack succeeds, and they set fire to the dwellings and cut the Abenakis off from retreat. After the battle, the rangers find only a few baskets of parched corn to replenish their meager provisions. Marriner finds Langdon shot in his abdomen. The rangers set out for Wentworth, pursued by hostile French and Indian forces. Their initial objective is Lake Memphremagog, with the injured Langdon bringing up the rear. Ten days later, Rogers' men reach the hills above Lake Memphremagog. Encountering signs of French activity, Rogers prefers to press on a hundred miles to Fort Wentworth, but the men vote to split up into four parties to hunt for food. Game proves scare, and two of the detachments are ambushed by the French, leaving most of the men dead. Persevering through harsh conditions, Rogers and the remaining fifty men finally reach the fort, only to find it unoccupied and in disrepair, and the British relief column has not arrived. Though personally despairing, Rogers attempts to rally the men from the verge of collapse. As Rogers attempts to perk up their flagging spirits with a prayer, they hear the fifes and drums of approaching British boats with the supplies. Reporting that the Abenakis have been destroyed, the British honor Rogers’ men by presenting their firearms and shouting "Huzzah". Returning to Portsmouth, Langdon reunites with Elizabeth while the Rangers are given a new mission: to find the Northwest Passage. Rogers fires them up with a speech about the wonders they will see on the march to the first point of embarkation, a little fort called "Detroit." He passes by Langdon and Elizabeth to say goodbye; Elizabeth informs him that she and Langdon are headed for London where she is hopeful Langdon will become a great painter. Rogers bids them farewell and marches down the road and off into the sunset. 

=====

The story starts in Aivali (Ayvalık), and takes us through the first days of the Turkish occupation. The way to amele taburu is slowly but steadily painted in pale and crimson, in the red bloodstained steps of bare wounded feet walking on hot summer sand. The life of the captives, as seen through the eyes of one who lived through these horrific experiences numbs the spirit of the reader too. The few bright sparks of humanity in a wasteland of inhumanity are treasured, as people are treated as if worthless: struck to death with hammers, lethally wounded and left to die alone, raped and then killed. All hope and all light is lost, despite the occasional effort by the prisoners to help each other—sincere at first, then worn down and half- hearted, until at last utter indifference. 

=====

Through the narrator's first-person account we learn the story of the people and the events of iDEATH. The central tension is created by Margaret, once a lover of the narrator, and inBOIL, a rebellious man who has left iDEATH to live near a forbidden area called the Forgotten Works. It is a huge trash heap where the remnants of a former civilization lie abandoned in great piles. Margaret, a collector of such "forgotten things", is friendly with inBOIL and his followers, who explore the place and make whiskey. inBOIL's separation from the group may have been related to the annihilation of the tigers, killed many years previously by the people. It is not clear to the reader whether the tigers were actual tigers, human beings or somehow anthropomorphic: they killed and ate people, including the narrator's parents, but they could also talk, sing, and play musical instruments, and were at least competent with arithmetic. Two tigers were killed on a bridge known later as the "abandoned" bridge. The last tiger was killed on a spot later developed into a trout farm. In the violent climax of the novel, inBOIL returns to the community along with a handful of followers, planning, he says, to show the residents what iDEATH really is. The residents know only that something is about to happen. Margaret appears oblivious to the threats, and unconcerned about the safety of her family and friends. Many suspect that Margaret knew and did not reveal details of inBOIL's real plan, thus "conspiring" with the evil men. She is semi- ostracized from iDEATH. At the beginning of the novel the narrator reveals that he ended their relationship because of these events.Brautigan, Richard, In Watermelon Sugar. San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1968. 

=====

The novel describes escalating phases of what appears to be an invasion of Earth by aliens, as told through the eyes of Mike Watson, who works for the English Broadcasting Company (EBC) with his wife and co-reporter Phyllis. A major role is also played by Professor Alastair Bocker – more clear-minded and far-sighted about the developing crisis than everybody else, but with the habit of telling brutally unvarnished and unwanted truths. Mike and Phyllis are witness to several major events of the invasion, which proceeds in a series of drawn-out phases; it in fact takes years before the bulk of humanity even realise that their world has been invaded. In the first phase, objects from outer space land in the oceans. Mike and Phyllis happen to see five of the "fireballs" falling into the sea, from the ship where they are sailing on their honeymoon. Eventually the distribution of the objects' landing points – always at ocean depths, never on land – implies intelligence. The aliens are speculated to come from a gas giant, and thus can only survive under conditions of extreme pressures in which humans would be instantly crushed. The deepest parts of the oceans are the only parts of Earth in any way useful to them, and they presumably have no need or use for the dry land or even the shallower parts of the seas. Bocker puts forward the theory that the two species could co-exist indefinitely, hardly noticing each other's presence. Humanity nevertheless feels threatened by this new phenomenon – particularly since the newcomers show signs of intensive work to adapt the ocean deeps to their needs. A British bathysphere is sent down to investigate, and is destroyed by the aliens with the loss of two lives. The British government responds by exploding a nuclear device in the same location. Unfortunately for the humans, the aliens' technology proves formidable; an American attack ends in disaster. Moreover, humanity is not united in the face of the mounting threat – the Cold War between West and East is well under way, with the two sides often suspiciously attributing the effects of the alien attacks to their human opponents, or refusing to co-operate because of their different political ideals. Phase two of the war starts when ships all over the world begin to be attacked by unknown weapons and are rapidly sunk, causing havoc to the world economy. Shortly after, the aliens also start "harvesting" the land by sending up biological "sea tanks", which capture humans from coastal settlements, for reasons that are never made clear; the Watsons witness one of these assaults on a Caribbean island. These attacks are eventually met with sufficiently strong retaliation from humanity that they become far less frequent. And so, in the final phase, the aliens begin melting the polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise. London and other ports are flooded (the government relocates to Harrogate), causing widespread social and political collapse. The Watsons cover the story for the EBC until the radio (and organised social and political life in general) ceases to exist, whereupon they can only try to survive and escape a flooded London, relocating to a Cornish holiday cottage which due to the floods now exists on an island in its own right. Other coastal countries are also disastrously affected – there is a reference to masses of Dutch refugees fleeing into Germany, having "lost their centuries- long war with the sea". Ultimately, scientists in Japan develop an underwater ultrasonic weapon that kills the aliens. The population has been reduced to between a fifth and an eighth of its pre-invasion level, and the world's climate has been significantly changed, with water levels 120 feet higher than before. 

=====

Depending on the book's printed origin there are several changes to the plot: * In the US edition almost an entire chapter on how the Watsons gained possession of The Midge yacht, and their aborted attempt to use a dinghy to get to Cornwall is cut, instead simply stating that Freddie Whittier "found it" one day. * The US edition skips several paragraphs detailing Mike Watson's mental state and his several subconscious attempts to commit suicide, with only Phyllis preventing his success. Instead, the US edition just states that Mike goes on holiday. * In the US epilogue, the Watsons are tracked down by Bocker via helicopter and he explains a great deal of what has happened to the world while Mike and Phyllis have been isolated – even describing the Japanese ultrasonic device in some detail. In the UK edition they are instead approached by a neighbour in a rowing boat, who gives them only a brief overview of what has happened in the world – excluding much of the detail and just mentioning that the Japanese have developed an ultrasonic device. He tells them that their names have been broadcast on radio, and that a "Council For Reconstruction" has been formed. * The UK edition is less bleak than the US version, implying that humanity has already begun to rebuild, and that civilisation survives – albeit at a lesser level than before. * There are several changes for a US audience in terms of language and phraseology. 

=====

During the Christmas season in New York City, Jonathan Trager encounters Sara Thomas at Bloomingdale's while they attempt to buy the same pair of black cashmere gloves. While they are both in relationships, a mutual attraction leads to sharing dessert at Serendipity 3. Sara reveals her opinion that fate determines many of her decisions in life. They encounter each other again when they both have to return to the restaurant to retrieve things that they had left behind. Considering this to be fate, they spend more time together and just after they exchange phone numbers Sara's gets blown into the wind. She interprets this as a bad omen so instead suggests alternative ways to put their numbers out into the universe. She suggests that one put their name and phone number on a $5 bill and the other on the front endpaper of a book that will be sold the next day. If each finds the other's item they are meant to be together, and can make contact. Weeks later, Jonathan is in New York City getting engaged to Halley Buchanan. On the same day, Sara is in San Francisco and comes home to find her boyfriend Lars Hammond proposing to her. Cold feet ensue as their respective wedding dates approach; they start their attempt to reconnect. Sara flies to New York City and her friend Eve persuades her to give up the chase—they go to Serendipity. The $5 bill given to Eve in change has Jonathan's contact information. Jonathan gets as a gift from Halley on the night of the wedding rehearsal the same book that has Sara's phone number. He and his friend Dean fly to San Francisco to find her. Jonathan sees a woman at Sara's house who he thinks is Sara but is Sara's sister, Caroline, fooling around with her boyfriend. Jonathan believes that his chasing ghosts means that he does not want to marry Halley. On board a plane to return to San Francisco, Sara is buying a head set and finds that she has Eve's wallet with the $5 bill of Jonathan. She disembarks and makes her way to his apartment. His neighbors tell her about his wedding at the Waldorf Astoria where she discovers that his wedding has been called off. Jonathan wanders Central Park, and comes upon a bench at the ice rink that has a jacket Sara had left behind earlier. He uses the jacket for a pillow while lying in the middle of the rink. He has with him one black cashmere glove. He gazes up at the falling snow and a cashmere glove falls on his chest. He sees it is Sara; the glove is hers. They introduce themselves to each other formally for the first time. In the final scene, Sara and Jonathan are at Bloomingdale's, enjoying champagne on their anniversary at the same spot where they first met. 

=====



=====

Gabriel, a minor Aristos, runs a group of planets containing societies devoted to artistic pursuits, assisted by his several daimones, each of whom has his or her own personality and special area of interest. Attending oneirochronon parties and composing operas, having sex with both men and women (at one point, he has sex with two women at once—one in physical reality, one in the oneirochronon), he seems to live a leisurely, decadent life. An elder Ariste, Cressida, warns Gabriel that something is up in a nearby solar system. There appear to be some extra planets in an area which astronomical surveys had said contained none. Cressida is murdered before she can explain more but Gabriel begins to suspect that Saito, the Aristos whose domain is closest to the mystery solar system, is using it for some undisclosed purpose. Gabriel and some of his advisers leave on a secret mission to the mystery solar system. When they arrive there they discover a horrifying truth: the planets contain life, human life. The most advanced of the planets contains a society similar in nature and technological development to Renaissance Europe. The people here have been left without the guidance and control of an Aristos and are mired in constant warfare and squalor, perishing of diseases which modern technology can easily cure. Someone, presumably Saito, has created human life here and consigned it to perpetual suffering for some unknown reason. Horrified by the suffering they see, Gabriel and some of his companions travel down to the planet to investigate. Posing as visitors from a distant country they identify a local nobleman whom they believe to be Saito and arrange a confrontation. While they are waiting for their chance to assassinate Saito they see their spaceship, which had been orbiting the planet, destroyed. Their assassination attempt fails when they realize that the nobleman is actually an artificial lifeform. Gabriel and his companions are captured and imprisoned. It is then that Gabriel is confronted with the truth: the mastermind behind this horrifying experiment is not Saito, but Captain Yuan, the architect of the current galactic civilization, who had long been presumed dead. Yuan explains his motives behind creating new life: the galactic society of the Logarchy has become staid and stultifying. Protected from any danger, the people have stopped improving and have become slaves of the Aristoi. He created this new solar system and the life within it in order to give a new start to humanity and create a society free from the restrictions of the Logarchy. Yuan, Saito, and Zhenling, an Ariste whom Gabriel had considered an ally and even taken as a lover, then begin a brainwashing program on Gabriel, eventually breaking his will and convincing him to help them with minor duties on their project. Their plan is foiled when a previously hidden sub-personality of Gabriel, that he dubs The Voice, uses his computer privileges to escape. Gabriel manages to defeat Saito and escape along with his friends. He informs the rest of the Logarchy about what has happened and rallies them to a war footing. The Logarchy's forces swarm into the new solar system to provide humanitarian relief and begin to integrate the societies into the galactic society. As Yuan's secrets are revealed it is also discovered that he had tampered with the examination process which forms the backbone of the Logarchy, promoting people to Aristoi who he believed could help him and keeping others back. Captain Yuan himself has escaped to parts unknown and Gabriel makes it his life's mission to track him down and bring him to justice. As he does so he is warned by Zhenling, now imprisoned, that in doing so he will only fulfill Yuan's plan to shake up the galactic status quo. Category:1992 American novels Category:1992 science fiction novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:Tor Books books 

=====

The film is set in the Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Thirteen-year-old Satellite (Soran Ebrahim) is known for his installation of dishes and antennae (for local villages who are looking for news of Saddam Hussein) and for his limited knowledge of English. He is the dynamic, but manipulative leader of the children, organizing the dangerous but necessary sweeping and clearing of the minefields. Many of these children are injured one way or the other, yet still maintain a boisterous prattle whenever possible, devoted to their work in spite of the vagaries of their life. The industrious Satellite arranges trade- ins for undetonated mines. He falls for an orphan named Agrin, assisting her whenever possible in order to win her over. She is a perpetual dour-faced girl who is part bitter, part lost in thought, unable to escape the demons of the past. Traveling with her is her disabled, but very caring brother Hengov, who appears to have the gift of clairvoyance, though he seems to have a bad reputation for it. The siblings stay with a blind toddler named Riga. It is revealed that Agrin gave birth to Riga after she was gang raped by soldiers, while Hengov's arms had been shot as the soldiers attempted to drown both children. Agrin is unable to accept Riga as anything besides a taint, a continuous reminder of her brutal past. Agrin tries to abandon the child on multiple occasions, until finally she ties him to a rock and throws him to the bottom of the lake, afterwards committing suicide herself by jumping from a cliff. When her brother sees a vision of his loved ones drowning, he hurries out of the tent to save them, but he is too late. Hengov eventually finds his nephew's body at the bottom of the lake but can't cut it loose from the rock due to his disability. Hengov grieves on the cliff from where Agrin jumped to her death. Meanwhile, a disabled Satellite loses any charm he had about the American intervention and looks away when the American soldiers finally pass by him. 

=====

The story begins with the protagonist, under the alias the Technician, who is in deep cover to stop the Hezbollah terrorist organization from overthrowing the government of Tunisia. The operation appears to be going well, until the terrorists discover that the weapons the Technician has supplied them are defective. Before the ensuing battle is over, though, Abu (the leader of the terrorist agency) manages to stab him in the abdomen. He is helicoptered out, and we next find him entering the headquarters of the Directorate. We meet his boss, Ted Waller, a lover of puzzles. Waller fires Bryson from the Directorate, saying he's lost his touch; Bryson is now told to live as a professor of Byzantine history under the alias of Jonas Barett. After some initial drunkenness and a search for oblivion because his wife, Elena, has left him, he agrees to take the job. He lives under this alias for 5 years and becomes a popular professor, until the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence at the CIA, Harry Dunne, confronts him with a shocking revelation. We learn that the Directorate is really a Russian intelligence operation created by GRU masterminds: essentially a penetration operation on American soil. He learns that his boss is really Gennady Rosovsky, who assumed the name of Ted Waller after the English poet Edmund Waller. Dunne says that Bryson's entire life, including his parents' death, was engineered by the Directorate to lead him to be a part of the agency. Every mission Bryson has undertaken was designed to hurt American interests, which horrifies him. Bryson is convinced to go after the Directorate and infiltrates a weapons tanker to find out what they're doing with weapons they're amassing. There he meets Layla, and after blowing up the tanker and amassing an arsenal, he continues to search for the Directorate; however, it seems that everywhere he goes there is a terrorist attack that follows. He pursues the trail of his former contacts with the Directorate. He meets with a former colleague, Jan Vansina, only to have Vansina killed before his eyes. At another point, when he is about to be shot by a former enemy, he is saved by Waller, who explains that Harry Dunne is really a part of Prometheus, an organization of business executives and powerful politicians around the world. The members of Prometheus are pushing the Treaty on Surveillance, which would allow for an international super-FBI, and their own Richard Lanchester (a former businessman turned politician) would be at the head. The implication is that this organization, because its members own information companies would then be able to monitor everything that went on in the world, and thereby control it. The Directorate's headquarters are destroyed, and he and his wife, Elena, united again, barely escape. He learns that money is being wired to members of the organization through a bank owned by Meredith Waterman, a respected bank. He goes to the bank headquarters and sneaks into their archives. There he learns of a business choice that forced the company to be sold to a certain Gregson Manning, the CEO of the world's largest company, Systematix, which owns health insurance companies, satellites, software, and thus many ways to get information on people. Manning, of course, is a member of Prometheus. Now, Bryson and Elena must infiltrate Manning's mansion to crash the meeting of Prometheus's leaders, days before they assume control. However, he finds Ted Waller at the mansion, escaped from the Directorate's destruction and a double agent. Bryson is surrounded and about to be executed when a machine he's purchased, a virtual cathode oscillator, destroys the machinery in Manning's home and disables all the "smart guns" that are trained on him. Most of the guests in the mansion are trapped and killed, seemingly ending the Prometheus Group. Nick and Elena quietly move to a tropical location somewhat assured to be isolated and away from any monitoring devices. Their peace is interrupted when Waller taps into their satellite TV, and promises that they will meet again. 

=====

Agnes (Molly Parker), an alcoholic and drug-user who is struggling to overcome her self-destructive behaviour, returns from Toronto, Ontario, to her Cape Breton Island hometown of Sydney, Nova Scotia, because of the failing health of her mother Rose (Marguerite McNeil). Rose, an Irish- Canadian who is also an alcoholic, lies dying of cancer at a local hospital. Agnes stays at her childhood home with her older sister Theresa (Rebecca Jenkins), a devout Catholic whose husband recently left her for a younger woman, and Louise (Stacy Smith), a middle sister who has retreated from the outside world. Waiting at their mother's deathbed, they are forced to face the resentments, trust issues, and scars of their past, particularly the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of their father, as they make peace with one another and with their mother. The sisters bring their ailing mother home despite the mistrust they feel at Agnes' pledge to care for Rose, but Agnes cleans the house, acts responsibly, and even encourages Louise to play her guitar and socialize with a friend from church. When Theresa's husband Donnie is left by his girlfriend, Theresa feels compelled to comfort him and clean his house as she blames herself for his betrayal; he wanted children while she didn't, which she considers a sin. Agnes repeatedly drives out to a craft and gift shop in rural Marion Bridge, near Sydney, where she befriends a 16-year- old girl named Joanie (Ellen Page) who works at the shop. When Theresa finds out what Agnes has been doing, she angrily warns her sister not to tell Joanie about her relationship to their family, and she adamantly refuses to consider Agnes' suggestion that they talk to their father. Eventually Theresa relents about Joanie and accompanies Agnes to meet her. Joanie's adoptive mother Chrissy (Hollis McLaren) comes to visit them and asks that they wait until Joanie is an adult before telling her their secret. It is implied that Joanie is the product of the incestuous relationship between Agnes and her father. When Joanie visits the sisters and asks Agnes whether she is her mother, Agnes tells her that Chrissy is her real mother. Before she dies, Rose asks her daughters to forgive her for ignoring things she didn't want to see as she believed it was best for everyone. The sisters finally visit their father, who is suffering from dementia, and his wife. With Agnes' encouragement, Louise buys a new truck and the sisters drive out to Marion Bridge for a picnic with Joanie and Chrissy. 

=====

Two NASCAR hopefuls, driver Larry Rayder and his mechanic Deke Sommers, successfully execute a supermarket heist to finance their jump into big-time auto racing. They extort $150,000 in cash from a supermarket manager by holding his wife and daughter hostage. In making their escape, they are confronted by Larry's one-night stand, Mary Coombs. She coerces them to take her along for the ride in their souped-up 1966 Chevrolet Impala. The unorthodox sheriff, Captain Everett Franklin, obsessively pursues the trio in a dragnet, only to find his outmoded patrol cars unable to catch Larry, Mary, and Deke after they ditch the Impala for a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 440 at a flea market. As part of the escape plan, Larry's vehicle enters an expansive walnut grove, where the trees provide significant cover from aerial tracking, and the many intersecting roads ("with sixty distinct and separate exits") making road blocks ineffective. The trio evades several Dodge Polara patrol cars, a specially- prepared high-performance police interceptor, and even Captain Franklin himself in a Bell JetRanger helicopter. Believing they've finally beaten the police, Larry and company meet their doom when they randomly collide with a freight train pulled by an Alco S-1 locomotive. 

=====

A father finds difficulties in expressing his love to his children. Garnet (played by Colin Roberts) and Flower (Jane McGregor) have grown up in an environment of stifled grief. Since their mother died, Ed (Callum Keith Rennie), their father, mostly just lives without a goal. Eight-year-old Garnet struggles to comprehend the world around him, while sixteen-year-old Flower seeks love with her new boyfriend. Forced to become a real parent to Garnet, Ed buys Garnet a gun and shows, for the first time, his real affection for the boy. 

=====

The episode takes place over a single day, which starts when Homer, Bart and Lisa are called down to breakfast by Marge only to find a sticky, gooey cereal called mueslix, which they do not want to eat. While Bart excuses himself to answer the door for Milhouse, Lisa helps Homer come up with an excuse to avoid eating breakfast. 

=====

One day while Abruc the otter and his son Stugg are out foraging for food, they find two badgers; an old one, dead, and a giant one who is barely clinging to life. The otters take the giant back to their colony, where he is revived and reveals himself to be called Lonna Bowstripe. He is told that his attacker was most likely the pirate Raga Bol, whose ship has been lost, and his crew of sea-rats, who are moving inland. Lonna vows to hunt down and kill the entire crew. Armed with his bow and arrows, he sets out to exact his revenge. Meanwhile, at Redwall Abbey, there is a young hare maid named Martha Braebuck, who is totally incapable of walking, thus restricting her to a wheelchair. She is wheeled around by her very hyperactive brother Hortwill Braebuck (Horty) and his friends, Springald and Fenna. While napping in front of the tapestry of Martin the Warrior, Martin and Sister Amyl appear to Martha in a dream, and she is told that the secret to make her able to walk can be found within the ancient walls of Loamhedge Abbey and that two individuals are coming that can help her. US cover of Loamhedge As it so happens, the two in question are Bragoon and Sarobando, two lifelong friends who ran away from the Abbey as Dibbuns. They survive by tricking small vermin bands and taking their food. This time, it's the gang of the weasel Burrad, whose numbers are at about 13. After Bragoon enters the camp (and Skrodd accidentally kills Burrad) they tell the gang that they must leave Mossflower Woods and never return. Skrodd has other plans, however, and convinces the gang to head to Redwall, where there is a rumour of a magical sword. One night, Skrodd is killed by the rat Dargle, who gets decapitated during Skrodd's death throes. The bodies are discovered by a young fox named Little Redd (Later named Badredd), who convinces the gang he was the one who had killed Dargle. They continue on to Redwall, though no one really takes the fox seriously. Bragoon and Sarobando arrive at the Abbey during the Summer festival and are told Martha's sad story and where the cure can be found. They decide to set out to Loamhedge, but not before Horty's group asks if they can go too. When Abbot Carrul refuses, the trio create a distraction and escape the Abbey. Though they wind up being captured by Darrats, they are rescued by Bragoon and Saro, who are not too entirely pleased to see them. Since they are already fairly far from the Abbey and could risk recapture, however, they are allowed to join the quest. Meanwhile, Badredd's group has arrived at Redwall and hold it under siege by slipping in through the east wall gate. Realizing he could do with some more troops, Badredd sends Flinky and Crinktail out to recruit some new vermin. The two stoats unwittingly run into Raga Bol and his crew, who take over management of besieging the Abbey. Elsewhere, the group of questers scale the tall cliffs leading to Loamhedge and enter a cave to avoid the rain. There they find Lonna and exchange stories. Lonna encounters Martin the Warrior's spirit during the night, telling him the whereabouts of Raga Bol. Lonna sets out, and the gang from Redwall continue up the cliff face and keep walking to the ancient Abbey. At Redwall, Raga Bol continues to try to break into the Abbey. After an escapade of using a ladder to scale one of the windows, one sea rat manages to enter the Abbey and is about to kill Carrul when Martha suddenly lunges out of her chair and pushes him away, realising she now has the ability to stand and all she needed was will power. Badredd's group managed to escape the Abbey during the battle, and Bol sends a rat named Blowfly after them. Instead of finding the escapees, Blowfly encounters Lonna, who asks him where the Abbey is and then kills him. When Lonna arrives at Redwall, he manages to kill many sea rats, and due to the efforts of the now mobile Martha, gets inside of the main building and is able to snipe out the crew from there. In a last-ditch attempt to kill the badger, Raga Bol tricks Lonna into coming out to the open where a group of spear throwers wait to slay him. Things go wrong when Lonna seizes Bol and uses him as a living shield against the spears. Then he goes on a rampage and kills every last rat. In the meantime, the five travellers find a stream but get ambushed by reptiles. Sarobando sneaks out and gets Log-a-log Briggy to help them get out of the ambush. They soon find themselves in another wasteland and get lost. When Horty finds a dormouse named Toobledum and his pet lizard Bubbub, Toobledum shows them the way to Loamhedge. The expedition to find Loamhedge has finally arrived at the dead Abbey, but all the things in Abbess Sylvaticus' grave have rotted away to nothing or turned into dust. Rather than return empty pawed, Bragoon and Saro tell the young ones to wait outside while they write their own cure, essentially saying that one just needs faith in oneself. On the way back, the group encounters the Abyss and are attacked by Kharanjul the Wearet and his army of painted rats. In an attempt to allow Horty, Fenna, and Springald to get to safety, Sarobando and Bragoon hold off the oncoming forces, eventually pushing the bridge over the edge of the abyss. Though they won the battle, the duo is badly injured, and they die shortly after. Ten seasons after they return to the Abbey, we find that Springald has become Abbey Recorder, Fenna has become Abbess, Horty has joined the Long Patrol at Salamandastron, adding the nom de guerre 'Longblade' to his name, Lonna has become ruler of Salamandastron, and Martha sings and dances on the walls every season in memory of the two who left to try to find her a cure. 

=====

The Oil, the Baby and the Transylvanians is the third part of a fairly successful Romanian trilogy about three Transylvanian brothers, their families, and their companions in frontier America, on the Great Plains. Set in the 1880s, the drama, comedy, and perhaps appeal of the film comes from the characters' difficulty in adjusting to the American rhythm and lifestyle. The youngest of the Brad brothers, Romulus, and his American fiancée, June, are expecting a baby. The wedding celebration is eagerly anticipated by all the family and organised according to ancient Romanian customs. Meanwhile, the middle brother John, who is honest, courageous, and fast on the draw, is held in increasingly high esteem by the townsfolk as he faces down a series of bullies and hoodlums, which sets up several gunslinging showdown scenes. Eventually John is elected as sheriff. He hunts these "Wanted" criminals to subsidise Romulus' decaying ranch Traian, the eldest of the three brothers, goes looking for water for his cattle and passes through the land of the Orbans, who are ironically Hungarian-Transylvanian farmers. The Orbans and Brads forge an important alliance and friendship against outside danger and violence. However, instead of finding water on his land, Traian finds oil. But will the promise of riches corrupt the brothers and tempt them away from their new home? 

=====

LouAnne Johnson, a discharged U.S. Marine, applies for a teaching job in high school, and is surprised and pleased to be offered the position with immediate effect. Showing up the next day to begin teaching, however, she finds herself confronted with a classroom of tough, sullen teenagers, all from low income working-class backgrounds, involved in gang warfare and drug pushing, flatly refusing to engage with anything. They immediately coin the nickname "White Bread" for LouAnne, due to her race and apparent lack of authority, to which LouAnne responds by returning the next day in a leather jacket and teaching them karate. The students show some interest in such activities, but are uninterested when LouAnne tries to teach the curriculum. Desperate to reach the students, LouAnne devises classroom exercises that teach similar principles to the prescribed work, but using themes and language that appeal to the students. She also tries to motivate them by giving them all an A grade from the beginning of the year, and arguing that the only thing required of them is that they maintain it. In order to introduce them to poetry, LouAnne uses the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" to teach symbolism and metaphor; once this is achieved, she progresses on to Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night". LouAnne rewards the students liberally, using candy bars, reward incentives, and a trip to a theme park. Her methods attract the anger of the school authorities, George Grandey and Carla Nichols, who try to force her to remain within the curriculum. Particular individual students attract LouAnne's attention for their personal problems. Raul Sanchero is a boy who is frequently involved in gang warfare and street crime. LouAnne tries to encourage him to focus by paying a special visit to his family to congratulate him on his work, and going to dinner with him as a way of instilling confidence and self-respect. Emilio Ramirez is her most troublesome personal "project" as he believes strongly in a sense of personal honor that prevents him from asking for help. When LouAnne discovers that his life is in danger because of a personal grudge held by a recently released thug, she tries to protect him. She advises him to seek help from Principal Grandey. The next day, Emilio visits Grandey, but Grandey (not realizing that Emilio is in serious danger) instantly dismisses him because he neglected to knock on Grandey's door before entering his office. Feeling rejected, Emilio leaves the school and is subsequently killed by his enemy. Heartbroken by her failure to protect Emilio and angry at the indifferent school system for contributing to his death, LouAnne announces to the class her intention to leave the school at the end of the academic year. The students immediately break down, begging her not to leave. Overwhelmed by their unbridled display of emotion, she decides to stay. 

=====

In the wake of the events of "The Mathematics of Magic", Harold Shea and his lady love Belphebe of Faerie have married and settled happily into a mundane earthly existence. But after Belphebe disappears at a picnic, Shea is questioned by the police on suspicion of foul play. The authorities also question his colleagues at the Garaden Institute, Walter Bayard and Vaclav Polacek, and then decide to take in the three of them for further interrogation. At that point the whole group, including police officer Pete Brodsky, are spirited away to another world, that of the Xanadu which is the subject of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. After they have all languished there for a time, Shea and Polacek are pulled away from this world as well and into that represented by Ludovico Ariosto's epic, the Orlando Furioso. The person responsible for their plight turns out to be Reed Chalmers, aspiring magician and former head of the Garaden Institute, who had accompanied Shea to Faerie in his previous adventure. He had been attempting to retrieve Shea alone, but had erroneously pulled in Belphebe first, and then misplaced his three colleagues and the police officer before at last getting things (nearly) right. Aside, that is, from getting Polacek too and leaving Bayard and Brodsky stranded in Xanadu. Moreover, as Ariosto's epic was a source text for Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Belphebe's mind has become confused, reverting in accord with the setting to that of her Furioso prototype, Belphagor. As a result, she now believes herself a native of the world into which they have been plunged, no longer recognizing Shea as her husband! Chalmer's goal was to seek Shea's assistance in transforming his own love, the lady Florimel, a human simulacrum magically made of snow, into a real person. It was also to that end that he himself had come to this world, where he is now the guest of the wizard Atlantès de Carena in the latter's marvelous iron castle in northern Spain. The world of the Furioso is based on Carolingian legend, and the Moorish Spain in which the extradimensional travelers find themselves is in the midst of a conflict with the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and his paladins. Somehow they must manage to negotiate their way through the delicate international politics, tiptoe around the treacherous Atlantès, achieve Chalmers' ambitions for Florimel, restore Belphebe's sanity — and survive. Beyond that there are still Bayard and Brodsky to rescue, though those are tasks for later tales. 

=====

In 1934, impoverished painter Eben Adams (Joseph Cotten) meets a fey little girl named Jennie Appleton (Jennifer Jones) in Central Park, Manhattan. She is wearing old-fashioned clothing. He makes a sketch of her from memory which involves him with art dealer Miss Spinney (Ethel Barrymore), who sees potential in him. This inspires him to paint a portrait of Jennie. Eben encounters Jennie at intermittent intervals. Strangely, she appears to be growing up much more rapidly than is possible. He soon falls in love with her but is puzzled by the fact that she seems to be experiencing events that he discovers took place many years previously as if they had just happened. Eventually he learns the truth about Jennie and though inevitable tragedy ensues, she continues to be an inspiration to Eben's life and art, and his career makes a remarkable upturn, commencing with his portrait of Jennie. 

=====

